1. Whole Systems Approach to Ecological Design

1.1 Ecological Designs
1. The ecological design overview explores five design philosophies or methodologies to deliver sustainable development:
  1. 1. Permaculture - design inspired by ecology
  2. 2. Ecological Economics – balancing the four capitals;
  3. 3. Restorative Environmental Design – importance of place and biophilia;
  4. 4. Ecological Engineering – nature is the toolbox;
  5. 5. Industrial Ecology – cyclical vs. linear processes.
2. John & Nancy Todd’s book From Eco-Cities to Living Machines Principles of Ecological Design, the design precepts are given as:
  1. • That the living world be the matrix for all design; • That design follow, not oppose, the laws of life; • That biological equity determines design; • That design reflects bio-regionality; • That projects be based on renewable energy sources; • That design be sustainable through integration of living systems; • That design be co-evolutionary with the natural world; • That building and design help in healing the planet; • That design follow a “sacred ecology”.
1.1.1 Permaculture
1. 1970s Bill Mollison and David Holmgren developed Permaculture as a whole systems design philosophy as a response to decline in the state of the Earth’s environment, high consumption rates of natural and non-renewable resources and destructive economic systems.
2. designing sustainable human settlements. It is a philosophical and practical approach to land use, integrating microclimate, functional plants, animals, soils, water management and human needs into intricately connected, highly productive systems. The idea is one of cooperation with Nature and each other, of caring for the Earth and people and presenting an approach to designing environments that have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems, to regenerate damaged land and preserve environments which are still intact.
3. By the early 80s, the concept had moved on from being predominantly about the design of agricultural systems towards being a more fully holistic design process for creating sustainable human habitats.
1.1.2 Ecological Economics
1. The intention now is to create sustainable human settlements and wellbeing by increasing or at least not diminishing any of the capitals, while building others.
2. Four types of capital
  1. • Built (infrastructure and buildings)
  2. • Natural (environmental)
  3. • Social (quality of interactions)
  4. • Human (skills - education)
3. The Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont states that:
  1. “This is our work. To shift the world's economies away from their present emphasis on infinite economic growth and toward a focus on sustainable human wellbeing. To forge fresh and visionary approaches to the economic challenges and opportunities that await us in the 21st century. To blur traditional academic boundaries and bring together experts, teachers, students, and stakeholders from all disciplines in order to pioneer vital new developmental tools and ideas. To guide the way to true global economic sustainability through teaching, research, design, and the practical application of those economic solutions that will generate natural capital even as they create human profit.”
1.1.3 Restorative Environmental Design
1. Human and natural systems are connected, linking ‘quality of life’ and integrity of natural systems.
2. Ecosystem services Low impact design = Small ecological footprint Biophilia Organic design using natural materials and ecological engineering. Spirit of place Vernacular design with a strong relationship to place.
1.1.4 Industrial Ecology
1. The old motto "Natura mater et magistra" - Nature is both mother and teacher - applies. The basic idea is that our industrial and development processes can be modelled on natural ecosystems.
2. “Eco-restructuring”. The fundamental idea is to move beyond the typical industrial production and consumption models, which are linear and mechanistic, to closed loop systems, which are similar to natural ecosystems.
3. So we design an industrial plant or a new town or an ecovillage as a living system, which is an integral part of the larger bioregion.
4. In these natural systems the processes of production and consumption, including recycling of wastes and nutrients, are balanced processes.
5. Natural ecosystems have a large number of pathways and so can be called distributed systems. Species diversity reinforces the stability of these systems with redundancy in function. The result is self-organization, self-repair, self-reproduction, and a great ability to adapt to perturbations in external conditions.
6. A paradigm change happens as we begin to think about industry as part of, and not separate, from Nature, that is human, economic and industrial activities are living systems participating in the Earth's natural systems.
7. "Model the systemic design of industry on the systemic design of the natural system ...
1.1.5 Ecological Engineering
1. The basic principles in the field of ecological engineering were first put forward by Howard T. Odum in his book Environment, Power and Society over thirty-five years ago. The fundamental idea is that, in addition to modelling human designed systems on Nature, we can use complete ecologies to carry out useful tasks.
2. Howard Odum stated: "The inventory of species of the earth is really an immense bin of parts available to the ecological engineer. A species evolved to play one role may be used for a different purpose in a different kind of network as long as its maintenance flows are satisfied."
3. Ecologically engineered systems are used to treat wastes, grow multiple food products, heat and cool the structures, and generate energy.
1.2 Master Planning – Moving Towards the Sustainable City
1. Half of the planet’s population live in cities. Many of the challenges we face as designers are ones of scale.
2. A number of steps are necessary to deliver a Master Plan. The first is the Sustainability Protocol. The design team meets with the project client and works through: • Vision • Values & Principles • Strategic Objectives • Financial Model, including cash flow & funding • Performance Targets (Sustainability Indicators) • Design Specifications • Delivery • Monitoring (Outcome Mapping)
1.2.1 Scale and decentralised
1. Scale is particularly important when selecting technologies
1.2.2 Relocalization
1. Local links are created and strengthened. A good example is an emphasis on locally produced food as compared to globally sourced supermarket food.
1.3 Climate Change and Peak Oil
1. Peak Oil is the crisis of getting off petroleum; climate change is the almost-irreversible legacy of two hundred years of fossil fuel pollution.
2. Leading geophysicists predict that peak is either currently occuring, or will occur by 2015
3. two major world issues are happening at the same time and greatly inform our ecological designs, leading to:
  1. 1. Conservation and efficient use of materials and energy in all phases of construction and operations; 2. Carbon neutral design of operations for all new building projects. This means no use of fossil fuels and obtaining electricity from a carbon neutral supply such as wind or solar; 3. Designing for the use of low embedded-energy building materials; 4. Off-setting any unavoidable carbon emissions with a responsible scheme, such as exporting carbon neutral electricity or planting and maintaining a new stand of trees.
1.3.1 Carbon Cycle
1. The sustainable cycle, which has been the normal condition up to the start of the Industrial Revolution, involves carbon cycling between the atmosphere, the oceans and the land (forests, soil and vegetation).
  1. This has been disrupted by emissions of greenhouse gases – mainly carbon dioxide – from the burning of fossil fuels. The resulting increase of CO2 in the atmosphere acts as a planetary “greenhouse”, allowing the sun’s ultra-violet energy to pass through the upper atmosphere. This UV energy is reflected from the ground as infrared energy, which is largely trapped by the CO2 and so the planet heats up.
1.3.2 Climate Change
1. The United Nations body, which coordinates the work of over two thousand atmospheric scientists, is called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
1.3.3 Carbon Footprints
1. A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change in units of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per annum (tCO2pa)
2. A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two parts, the primary footprint (shown by the green slices of the pie chart) and the secondary footprint (shown as the yellow slices). 1. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane). We have direct control of these. 2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown.
3. • At start of Industrial Revolution the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 280 ppm • By the late 1950s the CO2 concentration had risen to 315 ppm • It is now 380 ppm • And it is rising by 2 ppm annually • There is a general consensus in the scientific community that the maximum we need to target is 450 ppm • At the current rate this will be reached in 35 years, although the current concentration rate is accelerating in many regions • Carbon footprints vary by large amounts between nations. In the USA it is ~20 tCO2pp/pa (20 CO2 tonnes per person and per annum), while the UK’s carbon footprint is 10.62 tCO2pp/annum and some African countries have footprints of <0.5 tCO2pp/pa.
4. It is important to measure the footprint either as a consumption number or from production within a country or bioregion or community. Mixing the two methods can lead to double counting or omissions.
1.3.4 Carbon Emissions Reduction
1. The emisssions can either be: 1. Direct emissions – those things individuals or communities can do something about – energy use, consumption, fuel choices, etc. 2. Indirect emissions - those things individuals or communities can do little or nothing about – the military, public services and so on.
2. Contraction and Convergence
  1. High carbon nations would reduce their emissions, while allowing low emitting nations to have modest increases so that as a planet we converge to a single carbon emissions number by 2050, which is around 3 tCO2pp/pa. The Global Commons Institute sees this as the basic strategy for a fair strategy to reach our goal of limiting CO2 emission concentration to a peak of 450 ppm.
  2. 350 is the red line for human beings.The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the Earth.
1.3.5 Effects of climate change
1. The impact of various levels of increased CO2 and global temperature rise is illustrated in the chart below from the Stern Review.
2. Adaption to climate change is a key strategy at this time. Changes are happening and we need to adapt to new conditions while we also work towards sustainability
1.3.6 Peak Oil
1. At the same time as the climate is changing, we are also at a time when oil production is peaking and production and consumption will begin the inevitable decline.