Design With

Nature

Sam Coutts

City and
Countryside

The books opening

chapter starts with the author,
Ian L. McHarg, explaining
why he wrote the book. It is
my investigation into a
design with nature: the place
of nature in mans world, my
search for a way of looking
and a way of doing. He goes
on to tell that the book gives
the best evidence he could
find, but he believes that
straight facts and evidence is
too cold. Because of this he
has decided to write the book
from the perspective of his
life and adventures.
He dives right into his
life explaining where he grew
up, between the cities of
Glasgow and Firth of Clyde.
From the rest of his

descriptions of the place it is

inferred that this is in the
middle of Scotland. McHarg
describes growing up in the
time of the Depression. He
remembers nothing but
dreary gloom besides the
sparse celebration for
launching a new ship into the
British Navy.
McHarg decides that
the gloomy town of Glasgow
is not for him as it is painted
with industrial toil. He
describes a town near it
called Edinburgh that was
beautiful countryside instead.
He says, There are cities that
produce more stimulusbut
it is rare when they are
products of the industrial
revolution or its after math.
At age sixteen
McHarg was first introduced
to the idea of Landscape
Architecture and took to it
immediately. He wanted to
help the people in the
industrial cities realize the
beauty of nature and help
give back to them. Shortly
after he decided this he went
into the British Army as an
officer of the 2nd Independent
Parachute Brigade Group,
deployed in Italy. He
describes being bombed and
all hell breaking loose. The
only times he can remember
complete peace was when he
was in nature.
After the war McHarg
attended Harvard for four
years so he could officially
be called a professional
landscape architect and city

planner. He then returned to

Scotland to rediscover the
land. He returned to Scotland
with some dreams, some
parchments, a wife, son and
pulmonary tuberculosis. So
he spent six months in a
hospital outside of
Edinburgh.
After his quick
description of his life,
McHarg tells that we need
nature as much in the city as
in the countryside. He is a
firm believer in having nature
inside a city and he says it is
not a choice of either the city
or the countryside: both are
essential.

Sea and
Survival

McHarg opens the

chapter by describing how
society complains about so
many different problems, and
how long it takes to fix them.
He tells that if society were to
just embrace the idea of
nature as an arena of life
then we would find that some
difficult problems already
have ready solutions. His
example for this ideology is
the study of the New Jersey
Shore.

McHarg starts the

lesson with a brief
introduction of the shoreline
of the Netherlands. He
describes how the sand dune
beaches save the country
from the fierce sea. He also
praises the help of dune
grass. Dune grass is
described as a very hardy
plant that can live in the most
inhabitable environments.
In the case of the New
Jersey Shore the sand dunes
are created by storm waves
breaking in relatively deep
water offshore. Once these
submarine sand bars are
developed and rise above the
surface of the sea the wind
blows the sand into primary
and secondary dunes. As
water hits these sand bars at
an angle they are usually
elongated on the back side of
the bar, in New Jerseys case,
the southern tip.
As the dunes form the
colonies of dune grasses,
thickets, and other greeneries
start to inhabit the bar. The
type of vegetation being
grown on the bar depends on
which side of the bar it is
growing on. Some plants will
only grow on the primary
dunes, some only on the back
dune or bay shores. Its all
due to the soil salinity, salt
spray and sand movement of
that area. In New Jersey the
back dunes usually have red
cedar-pine woodlands and
high mesic thicket-beach
heather.

McHarg explains
some conclusions we can
draw from the analysis of
sand dunes. We can
understand that sand bars and
dunes are not permanent
structures and can be
constructed and/or
deconstructed fairly easily
and quickly. The knowledge
that the New Jersey Shore is
not a certain land mass as is
the Piedmont of Coastal Plain
is of some importance.
Groundwater is huge
importance in dunes, if the
water table is too low the
supporting plants on the dune
will die and the dune will be
washed away. Different parts
of the dunes are acceptable to
develop while others are
completely out of the
question. The back dune is
the most suitable for
development; however the
primary dune and bay shore
should not be even touched.
However these principles had
not been developed in time
for March 1962 when a
violent storm destroyed
dunes all along the New
Jersey Shore and caused $80
million in damages.

The Plight

The Plight that

McHarg refers to is a double
meaning. His personal plight
was away from Scotland for
the thought of things wilder
than Scotland. But also it
refers to the plight of the
human race into cities.
Taking over country land and
developing it into
industrialized wastelands.
McHarg describes it as the
problem of the place of
nature in mans world was
not a beleaguered nature, but
merely the local deprivation
that was the industrial city.
McHarg describes cities as
imprisoning gray areas that
encircle the center. The
cities are seen by the
landscape architect as
smudges of smoke on the
horizon, and a desolate desert
absent of any art what so
ever.
McHarg doesnt even
agree with the way our rural
land is developed. Rural
land persists around
metropolis, not because we

have managed the land more

wisely but because it is
larger, more resistant to
mans smear, more resilient.
He also says, in the great
plains nature persists only in
the meandering stream and
the flood plain forest.
In other words, man
has destroyed most of nature
through out America and
even the areas that we think
of as wild and untamed have
been changed from their
original, natural beauty. The
only way to prevent this from
happening while still
developing land is to build
using natural materials and
use gardens as forms of art.
McHarg does not think it is
impossible to keep pushing
our humanity further into
new ages while still being in
harmony with nature. His
thoughts are, in order to
achieve the best of both
worlds it is necessary to
retreat from polar extremes.

A Step
Forward

The Jersey Shore

example was a problem with
a disastrous ending, but not
very complex. This chapter
looks at a problem with in a
system that is much less
dramatic but more complex,
the highway. When highways
are designed they are based
purely on cost-effectiveness,
the designers could care less
about the scars on the earth
and through cities that they
make. Who are as arrogant,
as unmoved by public values
and concerns as highway
commissions and engineers?
Interstate highways
should maximize public and
private benefits. The top
three goals should be:
increasing the facility,
convenience, pleasure and

safety of traffic; safeguarding

and enhancing land, water,
air and biotic resources;
generating new productive
land uses and sustaining or
enhancing existing ones.
McHarg has come up with a
list of new suggested criteria
for interstate highway route
selection. He includes price
benefits and savings as well
as what it would cost.
When the question
arises should the highway
select the Greenbelt for its
route in order to reveal it to
the public or should it serve
the Greenbelt, but avoid the
destruction of transaction?
The answer comes with
weighing the social benefits.
If the area has lots of natural
beauty, expose it to the
public, however, if it is the
only natural beauty for miles,
conserve it and let the
millions of people that live
around it enjoy.
In the example of
Staten Island, the social
benefits are compared with
the physiographic
obstructions and two maps
are made and aligned with
each other to find the
recommended minimum
social cost alignment of a
highway through the island.
After the Tri-State
Transportation Commission
was presented the idea it
reversed its decision to
transect the Greenbelt.

The Cast and

the Capsule

McHarg opens the

chapter with two different
stories, one which he
borrowed from a colleagues
lecture, and one of his own.
The first comes to the
conclusion, these blemishes
he recognizes as the cities
and works of man and asks,
is man but a planetary
disease? The second talks
of nuclear holocaust and if it
were to happen, the first idea
they would have is next
time, no brains. These
quotes bring up the problems
behind man not being in
harmony with nature and the
damage it can cause. Man
thinks of itself as divine and
the only reason we are here is
to conquer nature and relate
with god. McHargs ideas are
that humans are just another
evolutionary process in the
history of earth, and we are
here to live in harmony with
nature. Were they aware

that, at least in
thermodynamic terms, the
world consisted of a working
partnership between the sun
and the leaf as man looked
onirrelevant, smiling
benignly upon the scene,
secure in the illusion of his
primacy?

Nature in the
Metropolis

When asked to advise

on which lands the
Philadelphia metropolitan
region should be selected for
open space, McHarg felt it
more suitable to consider the
place of nature in the
metropolis. With this
concept of having nature with
in a big city the possibilities
of harmonious living expand
exponentially. The key to
finding the appropriate areas
for open space is not within a
formula. For example, for a
population of six-million,
give one acre of open space

for every thirty persons.

Instead, find discrete aspects
of natural processes that carry
their own values and
prohibitions. However,
some open spaces are
naturally best for agriculture;
these spaces should be
dubbed high social value and
not developed on.

On Values

The values that are

discussed in the beginning of
the chapter are geared more
towards the lack of values
that man had for land when
America was first discovered.
Men burnt prairies to the
ground and killed herds of
animals. This was the first
major impact of man on the
continent during the
aboriginal occupation.
In Central and South
America different cultures
arose. The Mayans and
Aztecs, among others, linked
effective hunting and
gathering with simple
agricultural techniques that

helped sustain equilibrium in

the system for thousands of
years. They developed a
great acuity to nature and its
processes and
institutionalized this in a
variety of pantheist
cosmologies. These views
may be seen as unacceptable
now, but they helped man
and nature harmonize back
then, something our society
needs more of today.
The next stage of
values is set in the time of the
pilgrims. The majority of
power was in Europe and
France and beautiful gardens
were created. The Garden of
Versailles is just one great
example of landscape
architecture. Soon enough
each culture started to
develop its own style of
architecture and even an
International Style was
developed. Americas style of
landscaping is frowned upon
by others. The ransacking of
the worlds last great
cornucopia has as its visible
consequence the largest, most
inhumane and ugliest cities
ever made by man.

A Response to
Values

The next question to

ask ourselves in response to
values would be; what is the
lands capacity? This
question is addressed in the
Plan of the Valleys in the
Valleys of Baltimore County,
Maryland. A council was
created to prepare a plan to
ensure preservation of the
highest level of amenity with
optimum development. This
council was made in response
to a problem of a legacy of
open spaces and farms
threatened by being over run
by a new highway.
The council was
created in 1962 and its
development of the plan for
the Valleys contains some
original contributions to
planning theory and practice.
They finally conjured a
proposition. The area is
beautiful and vulnerable;

Development is inevitable
and must be accommodated;
Uncontrolled growth is
inevitably destructive;
Development must conform
to regional goals; Observance
of conservation principles
can aver destruction and
ensure enhancement; The
area can absorb all
prospective growth without
despoliation; Planned growth
is more desirable than
uncontrolled growth, and
more profitable; Public and
private powers can be joined
in partnership in a process to
realize the plan. In other
words, the plans left the
valleys mostly natural,
adding in buildings in
between trees and making the
community look as natural as
possible, as to live in
harmony.

The World is a
Capsule

McHarg introduces
the new ideas in this chapter
in relation to an astronaut
training for his trip into

space. His ship would be his

capsule, his place he will live
for the duration of the trip,
just as the world is our
capsule. The ultimate goal for
this capsule is to produce a
self-sustaining ecosystem
whose only import is
sunlight, whose only export
is heatsufficient to sustain
a man for a certain period of
time. By then end of this
capsule experiment the
astronaut had come to selfactualization and united with
himself and the nature around
him. This is what the goal is
for the rest of the world, this
is harmony.

Processes as
Values

McHarg brings the

next case study into play in
this chapter. He looks at New

York City; he tells how it the

land seems like it was almost
designed to house a city.
Everything a city needs is
there for the taking. Staten
Island is one of the most
resource rich areas of the
land. There is very limited
space left on the island and
the City of New York owns
it. It is up to them to decide
how dense the Borough of
Richmond should be.
Once again the
landscape architects weigh
the differences in social
values and physiographic
features. However, this time
the architects must also
consider the geology of the
island, given its long
geological history from the
Pleistocene Ice Age. The
bedrock and surficial geology
as well as the hydrology and
drainage system will place a
huge part on what land is
inhabitable and what land
should not be touched. Cross
sections of the island are
examined and maps are made
to show vegetation, wildlife,
land use, and social
implications of the land.
After laying the maps on top
of each other and close
examination they make a
composite map. It looks at
conservation, recreation, and
urbanization areas.
The value to this
process is that the
information so compiled and
interpreted constitutes the
base data required to subject
any planning proposal to the

test of least cost-maximum

benefit. There are however,
problems in this method. For
example the insurance of
parity of factors is a big
concern. All the factors in the
study must be disproportional
to each other. Also, the limits
of the photographic
resolution were met in the
study so some numerical
values may not have been
represented. Due all these
complexities, McHarg deems
it the most elaborate study
(he has) undertaken.

The
Naturalists

As designers we must
refrain from the desire to
create a Utopia. The simple
reason is because Utopias
differ from person to person,
and with everyone the same
there will be no love stories,
brave souls, or heroes. Thus,
the naturalist is born. These
Naturalists would be entirely
based on natural sciences,
ecology, and the ecological
view. Also, they have
concluded that evolution has

proceeded as much from

cooperation as competition.
They are more encompassing,
more certain, more romantic
and more modest than the
modern day man. As
Naturalists deny themselves
the luxury of mysticism and
assume that all meaning and
purpose can be inferred from
the operation of the
biophysical world, it is here
that they have searched for an
ethic.
There are several
repetitive value-systems used
in this cosmography, for
example the use of
negentropy, in which plants
are supreme then come
decomposers then all other
life falls into place. It is also
made clear that even the
littlest of organisms get
recognized in the system.
Finally, one of the most
important theories for
Naturalists is the idea of
man in nature instead of
man against nature. They
have a vivid sense of the
other creatures in the earth
and try to relate to everything
around them. However, there
are still two things that keep
return them to our concern.
They are committed to the
acquisition of knowledge
and they have a great realm
of human understanding.
This gives them company
with humanists as well as
ecological scientists, giving
them the best of both worlds.

The River
Basin

McHarg preaches that

professional landscape
architects or city planners are
limited in the work that they
do, but professors can start a
study when ever they want as
long as they find it
educational to their students.
So McHarg joined the
American Institute of
Architects Task Force to help
contribute information on the
Potomac River Basin.
This case study does
not have the limitations that
the architect must abide by
like the past one did. There
are no issues of survival,
highways, or metropolitan
areas. The goal of this study
is to further develop the
ecological planning method.
The first
considerations are historical
geology and climate which,
in conjunction, have
interacted upon the river
basin, for they have created
the basic form. Everything
must be taken into

consideration for the project,

everything that was included
in the past studies in addition
to things like precipitation,
climate, and water issues
come into planning too. The
goal: to find the highest and
beset uses of all the land in
the basin, but in every case
we will try to identify the
maximum conjunction of
these.
The studies of the
basin show all types of
topography, vegetations,
aquifers, and minerals found
in the river basin. The
architects make detailed
maps of these, among other
relative data, and color code
them to the results they
found. After they developed
the separate maps, they made
one synthetic map of
alternative suitabilities of the
entire river basin region. It
showed where urban design
should be, agriculture,
recreation, mining and
commercial uses should be.
After this they made 3-D
models of what the river
basin should look like after
fully developed by each
system.
McHarg stresses the
need of creative people in the
profession of landscape
architects. These persons
cannot be impeccable
scientists for such purity
would immobilize them.
Instead he says that the
person should be some one

naturally interested in the

sciences and with only
enough education in the
subjects to get the license for
them, this way the creative
side of the person can
flourish and interpose their
creative skills upon the land.

The
Metropolitan
Region

A city occupies an
area of land and operates a
form of government; the
metropolitan area also
occupies an area of land but
constitutes the sum of many
levels and forms of
government. McHarg feels
like the term was made just
for the convenience of
cartographers because its
meaning does not make much
sense.

When an uncontrolled
growth model is made, it
shows that development,
itself, will not observe the
natural process values or
suitability. The town will
grow and grow in all areas,
despite if the land is even
capable of supporting
structures.
In Washington D.C. a
growth plan was created in
2000. When put next to a
map of suitable places for
development it is almost as
oblivious as is unplanned
growth. The radial corridor
plan deemed certain places as
unforested. This is not
acceptable; an examination of
agricultural value,
foundations, soils and other
aspects would be needed to
make the plan 100% credible.
The new method of
examining all of this at once
is called taking a quadrant of
the area. It is not a plan it just
shows the implications of the
land and its processes display
for prospective development
and form.
The final concern of
the investigation is form. If
growth responds to natural
processes, it will be clearly
visible in the pattern and
distribution of development
and density. However this is
not the final step of the plan,
looking at nature only avoids
the allegations of
ignorance. After we
understand nature then we
can resume looking at other
objectives.

Process and
Form

When process and

form is looked at we must be
reminded of the Naturalists.
The naturalists believe that
all of nature is a process.
Now the artist comes into
play and sees nature not only
as a process, but as a form; a
form that can be molded into
something beautiful, or can
be beautiful if left untouched
retrospectively. Nature is in
fact formal, elements have
form with their nuclei and
electron fields, snowflakes
have form with their
crystalline structure, even the
double helix of our DNA has
form.
The Naturalists have
decided that the earth is fit
and can be made more
fitted. Fit being another
word for art, except fit
includes natural objects,
creatures, and artifacts, not
just artifacts.
When the form of
America is looked at we have
to look back at its original

state before any colonization

occurred. The natural
communities of plants and
animals were the best
expression of environmental
adaption, or evolution. When
an ecosystem has every plant,
animal and organism in place
it has then achieved fitness.
According to McHarg, This
is a conclusion of enormous
magnitudethat there is a
natural association which is
most appropriateindeed, in
the absence of man, one
which would be inevitable for
every place upon the earth
and that that community of
creatures is expressive of its
fitness. This I would call the
identity of the given form.
The question now is
not what is fit, but what is
unfit? We see animals in
nature as fit, but as soon as
that animal is crippled and
can no longer perform the
way it is supposed to, it is
unfit. Our language
conforms to this notion of the
unfit as the unhealthy,
crippled, and deformed.
Naturalists however, avoid all
this by defining creation as
all things inert, all things
living and all men. McHarg
closes the chapter with a
frustrating statement saying,
I neither reject nor accept
this method, but I do
recommend the Naturalists
view as being a suitable
exercise for the mind during
the long waiting periods.

The City:
Process and
Form

McHargs next
project was one in
Washington D.C. and the
plan was to plant petunias,
zinnias, begonias and
Japanese cherries through out
the city. He loved the idea
but saw some problems with
it. He also saw the
opportunity to try out the
ecological method on an
existing city instead of just
rural spots or spots of
urbanization.
He will now need to
take into account the problem
of the form, process and
functionality of a city. Plus,
he has to increase the
aesthetics of the city.
McHarg says, Memorable
cities have distinctive
characters, and he wants to

make sure he makes the city

memorable. Beautiful cities
are usually built on beautiful
land that has not been torn
down or altered distastefully;
instead the landscape is used
to enhance the city that it
homes. A big component that
McHarg wants to make sure
is implemented is that the
values he creates for the
project go down as policies
so the city can continue doing
what he did for the city after
he is gone.
The image of
Washington is a great city
meeting a great river. It has a
symbolic center point as
the Washington Monument
and it seems like the entire
city is trying to face it. It is a
city of monuments, tree-lined
avenues, green open spaces;
its buildings are neoclassical
and large in scale, the major
spaces are heroic. When the
map was made for the form
of the city, the major
elements were clearly
highlighted as the Capitol,
White House and
Washington Monument as
the primary focus, followed
by governmental buildings,
avenues, and then the major
open spaces. When the two
maps were developed of the
evaluations of the
physiographic and ecological
values it was clear what the
city needed to do for the
summary evaluation.
By identifying major
parts of the form, and
examining their importance,

the art commissioners job

becomes a lot easier. It helps
him figure out where the
pieces fit perfectly into the
city, and what parts of the
city dont necessarily need
the art. All so the common
focus of the job is in the best
interest of the value of the
city, not as individual
projects. The method for
D.C. became the search for
the basis of the identity of the
city.

The City:
Health and
Pathology

In this chapter
McHarg quickly changes the
subject from himself to a man
named G. Scott Williamson,
who according to McHarg,
Was a remarkable man.
Williamson was obsessed
with the idea of health as a
phenomenon. He thought it

was just as big as a

phenomenon as disease. He
had a hypothesis; physical,
mental and social healths
were unified attributes and
there were aspects of the
physical and social
environment that were their
corollaries. He wanted to test
this hypothesis so he built the
Peckham Health Center in
London. Shortly after he
opened it WWII started and
the hospital was nationalized
after the war so he died
before he ever got to know
the results.
McHarg decided to
carry on the study for
Williamson while teaching a
class entitled Ecology in the
City. He told his students the
story and then persuaded a
number of students that it
might be enlightening to
identify the specific
environments of pathology
physical, mental and social
for the city of Philadelphia.
His hopes were to at least get
the data collected so that
more skilled researches could
conclude things from it in the
future.
The class decided to
collect all available statistics
on the categories of health,
ethnicity, housing quality, air
pollution and density. They
divided the data into highest,
intermediate, and lowest
incidence in the city then
they mapped the data on a
map on Philadelphia to see if
there were any connections
between pathology and the

environment. After mapping

out a number of different
diseases, and environmental
values they created a map of
Environments of Health and
Pathology and a Synthesis
map to help them draw
conclusions.
Previous studies
similar to this one have
focused on the factors of
density, overcrowding and
social competition. Their goal
was to see if there were any
other influential data sets for
urban pathology. A man
named Dr. John Calhoun
helped tremendously in the
field linking stress to heart
and kidney diseases.
McHarg concludes
the chapter, and the book, by
saying, The central
proposition of this book has
been that creativity and
destruction are real
phenomena, that both have
attributes, that fitness and
unfitnessin the
evolutionary senseare
expressions of these, as are
health and disease.