This isn’ t a Nature is good; humans are bad rant. While some may hold that view, I don’ t. We are part of Nature. I think there is a lot we can learn from Nature that will help us be better design professionals. So what are Nature’ s rules and how do they impact the built structures and places we’ ve created? Can we borrow Nature’ s rules to benefit how we design? I think we can.
Human beings are primary change engineers 1( PCEs). We aren’ t the only PCEs 2, but as PCEs go we might be about the best at re‐engineering our environments to fit our specific needs in pretty short order. Unfortunately, much of what we make lacks lasting power. Heck, we don’ t even think of design in that way, at least not anymore. No sane design professional has the audacity to declare today they are designing a new, fill in the blank, to last a thousand years! That wasn’ t always true. In the past, the Incas, Mayans, Egyptians, Babylonians, and the English Crown, to name a few( and certainly not the only examples) all envisioned unending dynasties literally housed in structures expected to last equally long( i. e. forever). But they haven’ t and they didn’ t. Nature, however, left to her own devices, has very little trouble building long-lasting places for organisms 3. Nature can play the long game better than us because very early in time she established some key rules that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING must follow. As designers of spaces built in Nature, it’ s in our best interest to understand her rules.
Before considering some of Nature’ s rules, we need to first establish a truism. Nature always wins. She made the game, heck she made the deck of cards we use to play the game so, you either play by her rules, or you get kicked off the game board. When we don’ t pay attention to Nature’ s rules we pay for it. Ignoring or overcoming Nature costs us a lot of money, energy 4, and, in the worst cases, can lead to disasters and death.
Let’ s make sure this first point is well understood, it is axiomatic to understanding the relationship between the structures and places we humans design and build, and Nature; Nature Always Wins. No design by any human is worth the paper its drawn on if the designer doesn’ t understand this most primary of truths. And to be fair, most designers do understand this, at least implicitly if not overtly. I suspect most design professionals have never thought of their work in this way, but all design is governed by this truth.
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1
Primary change engineers, are ecosystem engineers that are autogenic, capable of changing their surroundings via their own
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physical structures( such as root systems, or leaves) and allogenic, capable of changing their surroundings through mechanical or |
other means. Jones et al.( 1994), defined six factors that determined the scale of an ecosystem engineer, they are as follows: |
a. |
The anticipated amount of activity that can be accomplished within the organism’ s lifetime; |
b. |
The population density of the organism; |
c. |
The spatial distribution of the organism; |
d. |
The duration of an organism’ s occupation of a region; |
e. |
The type, formation, and permanency of construction, artifacts, and impacts and their durability in the absence of the engineer; |
f. |
The number and type of resources that are directly and indirectly controlled by the engineering activity. |
2
Many organisms are PCEs, for example elephants have been known to rearrange whole landscapes in days, ants build mounds, gophers dig holes, wasps build nests. The classic example is the beaver, who constructs a physical structure that alters in negative and positive ways, an entire ecosystem.
3
Hey, you object, what about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs? Or maybe you just object, if Nature is so good at this how come we don’ t have dinosaurs, or the dodo, or whatever your favorite objection will be. First, my response is there’ s only so much we can tackle in the brief space allocated to this essay. But you are right, Nature didn’ t do a very good job ensuring the dinosaurs are still around. But in the context of Rule No. 2, below I’ d also suggest any one organism is a pretty low investment. I’ ll also note, this essay is about highlighting generalizations. A simple rule of philosophy is to base a rule on generalizations not exceptions.
4
In today’ s world, often money is a unit of energy, we constantly balance our ability to directly purchase energy sources: food, fuel, or electricity, or indirectly purchase energy: labor, cab fare, or even eating out.
2 | LEARNING FROM NATURE