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Design Timeline - Design With Nature
use 'design timeline' as search on top, to get all Timeline posts.

This post is certainly a tribute to Ian L. McHarg's seminal work ' Design With Nature', with the hope that a few more people will spend a few more minutes leafing through it. Also prompted by the fact that a few Product Design courses have started offering smallish modules on Landscape Architecture and such like. I thought, we were firmly astride onto the path of specialized learning. Now, does this provide a more 'well rounded' design education, or just promotes the notion that designer's are often 'only bits-n-pieces people' ?

'Design With Nature' has many vantage points... it provides tools for regional planning, it provides a template for resource optimization, it is a manual on sustainable development, it also raises some very pertinent questions on the nature of development... 
Is Man subservient to Nature or is Nature subservient to Man ? It seriously questioned the tendency to enforce man's will on nature. An example of the French Baroque style of Landscape is often cited, in the Palace of Versailles landscape, were nature had been tamed to follow patterns willed by Man. As opposed to an example of English countryside Landscape tradition were picturesque views followed natures undulations.

Palace of Versailles landscape

Based on McHarg's approach values can be assigned to patches of land along parameters like Susceptibility to Erosion, Bedrock Foundation, Hydro-logical Data, Natural Drainage Patterns, Geological Information, Mineral assets, Heritage values, Cultural Values, Natural assets, Wildlife Habitats, Ecologically Fragile zones etc. This overlay-ed information can highlight the nature of impact and cost of development. It provides a tool for planning development with calibrated and informed trade-offs. 

Recently, the pilgrim/ tourist routes of Badrinath and Kedarnath were battered by un-usually high rainfall. Not only did we loose entire settlements, it also washed away historical, cultural, natural and ecological assets... should we not value our assets enough to adopt sound engineering tools and sensible design approach ?