NUS Department of Architecture

AR2723 Strategies for Sustainable Design

26 January 2016 Dr Chang Jiat Hwee

Week 3. Urban Ecology and Architectural Nature:

Water, Landscape and Food in the Built Environment
Reading Guide
I have written a few questions for you to consider in writing your reading response. You need not address all of
them, or for that matter, any of them. They are intended as structure for you to understand the article.
1. Thayer, Robert L. Gray World, Green Heart: Technology, Nature, and the Sustainable Landscape. New

York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994, pp. 136-161

a.

What is the water droplet model (p. 138) of relationship between nature and technology?
How does it correspond to the different phases of Western historical development?

b.

Why does Thayer note that there is a widening dislocation between surface and core values of
the landscape (p. 140, third paragraph)? What does Thayer mean by transparent and opaque
landscapes? When do landscapes become congruent or when are they incongruent?

c.

What does Thayer mean by the postmodern dilemma of technology and nature (p. 141, last
paragraph)? What are the three possible responses to this dilemma? According to Thayer,
which is the most appropriate response? Why?

d.

Which phase of the water droplet model does Chaco Canyon represents? What about the
Alaskan landscapes?

e.

Which response to the postmodern dilemma of technology and nature does the Mirage
Hotel Casino, esp. its volcano represent? What about Arcata Marsh? Are they transparent or
opaque, congruent or incongruent?

2. McHarg, Ian L. Sea and Survival & A Step Forward in Design with Nature. New York: Natural

History Press, 1969, pp. 7-17, 31-41.

a.

McHarg writes that Let us accept the simple proposition that nature is process, that it is
interacting, that it responds to laws, representing values and opportunities for human use with
certain limitations and even prohibitions to certain of these. (p. 7, second paragraph, left
column) How does McHargs study of dune formation shows that nature is process and what
are some of the laws that he has uncovered from understanding the process? Based on these
laws, what are some of the limitations and prohibitions of human use that McHarg
describes?

b.

Why does McHarg write that all of this disaster was caused by man through sins of
commission and omission (p. 16, second last paragraph)? What is the disaster that McHarg is
referring to and what are some of the sins of commission and omission?

c.

Why does McHarg claim that the highway and its creators represent the single example of
an assertion of simple-minded single purpose, the analytical rather than the synthetic view and
indifference to natural process indeed an anti-ecological view (p. 31, third paragraph, left
column) ? Do you agree with McHargs claim?

NUS Department of Architecture

AR2723 Strategies for Sustainable Design
26 January 2016 Dr Chang Jiat Hwee

d.

McHarg refers to an improved method (p. 32, second paragraph, middle column) of highway
planning and design. What is this improved method, what is it improving on and why is it
considered an improvement?

e.

McHarg refers to values at various points in these two chapters. What values are McHargs
improved method premised on? Are McHargs values similar to those assumed in typical
costbenefit analysis? Why does McHarg suggest that certain values cannot be given exact price
values (p. 34, first paragraph, right column)?