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Architectural Theory Review

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Ecological Urbanism
Nataly Gattegno Available online: 29 Apr 2011

To cite this article: Nataly Gattegno (2011): Ecological Urbanism, Architectural Theory Review, 16:1, 73-75 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2011.560554

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BOOK REVIEW Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty (eds), Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Ecological Urbanism, Baden, Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers, 2010 REVIEWED BY NATALY GATTEGNO
2011 Nataly Gattegno

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Ecological Urbanism, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty, will at once provoke the design discourse and keep it simmering. An edited volume of essays, projects, provocations and visions for a future urbanism inextricably connected to ecology, Mostafavi establishes a global and local imperative grounded in design. There remains the problem that the moral imperative of sustainability and by implication sustainable design tends to supplant disciplinary contribution. Thus sustainable design is not always seen as representing design excellence or design innovation (p. 13). Mostafavi continues his call to action by addressing a distinct dichotomy that exists between design academia and design practice: This situation will continue to provoke skepticism and cause tension between those who promote disciplinary knowledge and those who push for sustainability, unless we are able to develop novel ways of design thinking that can contribute to both domains (p. 13). This dichotomy between disciplinary knowledge and sustainability is one that Mostafavi tries to reconcile in his effort to ascertain new pathways of investigation, exploration and ultimately experimentation. Ecological Urbanism is a 656-page volume that emerged out of the 2009 Harvard University conference Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future, organised by Mostafavi as Dean
ISSN 1326-4826 print/ISSN 1755-0475 online DOI: 10.1080/13264826.2011.560554

of the Harvard University Graduate School for Design. The conference brought together design practitioners and theorists, economists, engineers, environmental scientists, politicians and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future, as noted on the conference website (http://ecologicalurbanism.gsd.harvard. edu/conference.php). The book is a perhaps surprisingly coherent compilation of essays, conference papers, project proposals, excerpts and sound bites from the conference. Mostafavis preamble and introductory essay Why Ecological Urbanism? Why now? stresses the urgency of the topic. An opening set of paragraphs situates the current scene of rapid population growth, rural to urban migration patterns, and exploitation of limited resources, as well as the efforts of various UN reports, global protocols and political pleas. Mostafavi continues by describing this global imperative relative to architecture and primarily urbanism. Through a criticism of the inevitably small impact of current sustainable architectural practice on the global scale, Mostafavi calls for novel and innovative ways of thinking design that can contribute both excellence and sustainability. He further stresses the importance of the word urbanism in the formulation ecological urbanism. The urban condition

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is the site of intricate social, political, cultural and economic variables that require complex, transdisciplinary, synthetici.e. ecological frameworks for design. The sheer scale of the emerging urban condition generates needs that surpass the limited scope of the work undertaken by ecological architecture. For Mostafavi the aim of the book is to provide a framework for design where ecology and urbanism are conjoined to provide the knowledge, methods and clues of what the urban can be in years to come (p. 13). The essay continues with a series of ideas that reside more in the realm of provocations than prescriptions. Through references to Gregory Bateson and Reyner Banham, and to Felix Guattaris frequently-cited Three Ecologies, Mostafavi calls for new forms of creative imagining (p. 26) and openness to unexpected models of urban development (p. 33). These ecological design practices do not simply acknowledge the fragility of our surrounding ecosystem and the resource limitationsthey consider this contemporary state of affairs as the necessary basis for creative design speculation. Mostafavi leverages Guattaris ethicopolitical concept of ecosophy to lay the ground for an ethico-aesthetic design practice that brings together architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism. He describes this as the transdisciplinary nature of ecological urbanism practicein opposition to the hackneyed term interdisciplinary practice. Mostafavi frames responses through a series of provocatively titled sections, some conceptually clearer than others: the more theoretically established Anticipate; the project driven sections of Sense, Curate, Produce; the call to action in Mobilize; the transdisciplinary research necessitated by Measure; the more speculative work presented in Adapt; and the

Incubate section that describes current design practice in the eld of ecological urbanism. Woven throughout the book are three shorter Collaborate sections that present work through a more collaborative and transdisciplinary lens. The targeted audience varies from essay to essay and section to section because of the orchestrated mix of realised projects, speculative endeavours, theoretical writings and practical data-based research. As a result, the book will effectively appeal to practising designers, authors, teachers and students of design, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and urban design. Mostafavi sets up the theoretical spine of the book through Rem Koolhaas call for a move away from an amalgam of good intentions to a political direction and ultimately a direction of engineering. Sanford Kwinter argues for an ecological praxis (p. 103) that provokes us to think anew about the culture of cities. Bruno Latour sets up the explorations for ecological urbanism as a discipline that has no history to mine, no past to which to direct its queries, no help desk, no competent or ready staff (p. 127) to call upon. Latour sets in motion one of the more compelling agendas of the book: we have to make do with the present. Gareth Doherty picks up that lead and delves into Bahrains multiple hues of green to describe the inevitable transformations of the ecologies of society, politics and infrastructure with which green is inherently intertwined. The need for ecological design practice is rooted in the present condition, but its capacity to further shape and change society is represented in Dohertys research through the social life of Bahraini date palm trees. According to Homi Bhabha the project of ecological urbanism is one of projective imagination (p. 116) and the projects

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included in the volume take on the challenge at multiple scales. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha make a case for landscapes of absorption and resilience through their beautifully represented work in Mumbai. Achim Menges uses his work on Performative Wood to describe a computational design process based on systems of exchange with environmental inuences working from the molecular to the architectural. These environmental inuences are interestingly challenged through the work of ecoLogicStudio who deploy catalytic prototypes and their strategic aggregations into regional eco-plans for Senegal. The scale of intervention is up for debate with the work of Chuck Hoberman, for whom the small movements of the Adaptive Fritting project lead to macroscopic changes (p. 560); while Michelle Addington explodes the scale of ecological urbanism to the scale of infrastructure by calling for the decoupling of energy systems from the geometries of building scale. Nina-Marie Lister recasts her concept of Adaptive Design to describe all these types of design strategies which are resilient to discontinuous environmental change. This concept of resilience is integral to the projects presented in the book. Resilience describes an ability to recover from disturbance; to productively function within elds of change in a state of health. Ecological urbanism does not describe a design practice that is simply surviving in the wake of destructionit is thriving, alive, reacting to,

adapting and producing alternative social, political, economic and ultimately sustainable spaces of occupation. Mostafavis Ecological Urbanism embraces an inextricable connection to the present, gritty planet Earth as it currently exists. The multiple authors, designers and provocateurs set out a compelling call to act within our present condition and to leverage it as a vehicle to design future cities that ourish within their ecological means. The book moves from Mumbai to Bahrain, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, London, Sao Paolo and beyond to project a global, urban and ecological agenda for design innovation. Though the distinction between ecological urbanism and other types of urbanismlandscape urbanism or infrastructural urbanism, to name just two is never made clear, the work presented in Ecological Urbanism sets up a larger context within which multiple design disciplines and multiple scales of urbanism can reside and thrive. Far from a utopian proposition, ecological urbanism can only exist within the present context through the implications set up by the contemporary urban condition. The word urbanism in ecological urbanism sets the stage for a highly engaged, timely, integrated and innovative design practice; one rooted in the social, cultural and political condition of the present day, yet constantly recalibrating itself relative to the future. Ecological Urbanism is of the here and now.

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