Ecology Speaks for Itself

Days ago, I listened to the presentation on aproposal, in which the designer is requested to turn a plot of land at the mountain foot in the city into an "urban forest". Some research on biodiversity was conducted, and quantitative indicators based on the density of plant species per unit area was set up. The designer considered that the more variety in a certain area indicates better ecological condition.Therefore, more tree species per unit area should be planted than in the mountain, aiming to build an "urban forest" with "biodiversity".

Currently, every designer is possessed with strong eco-consciousness and pursuing, keep talking a lot of the ecological principles and ideas.With the title of such ecology ideologies, their own works can be classi fied as ecological designs. However, what is the essence of ecology?

Once I saw an ecological landscape design for the arid areas in northwest China, which I am quite familiar with in a design institute.The proposal depicts winding rivers, lush plants and picturesque sceneries. From what I see, although the natural environment there is vulnerable, local people are eager and determined to improve the condition of their hometown. They are accustomed to equate green with ecology, thus the designers also tend to consider a landscape with green appearance as an ecological one. Plant communities arranged in a picturesque way are ecological and conform to people's expectation of nature. But in fact, to create and sustain such landscape consumes large human, material and financial resources for support, which obviously runs counter with the principle of ecology.

Some people consider that the use of natural materials reflects ecology. When designing Jiangyangfan Eco Park, we were told to use natural resources like wood and thatch rather than steel as they are more ecological, or at least appears to be so. It has been 8 years since we built the park till now. If we had used natural materials at that time, the thatch might have decayed and the wood might have been damaged in such humid environment. As a matter of fact, steel is more durable than thatch and wood. Also, it is more convenient in construction and consumes less resources, which made it much more environmentally friendly and conforming to ecological principles.

The application of some new energy is also deemed ecological.Take solar power as an example. As is known to us all, it is a kind of clean and renewable energy source. Yet the photovoltaic conversion requires a large number of facilities at the present stage,and manufacturing these facilities demands non-renewable energy.Besides, solar energy has low transfer ef ficiency, low energy storage capacity and high running cost. In current technical condition, power supply through solar energy may seem to conserve resource but actually it waste a lot.

Draw back to the "urban forest" we started with. It is precisely not ecological to build a "forest" with more plant species diversity in aflat and densely populated urban area than the neighboring sparsely populated mountain area with more diverse biotopes. It's because the succession of plant communities on every plot of land has its own rule. Every region and climate zone have their own suitable natural plant communities. Some plants coexist with each other and altogether making the most stable and ecological effective combination. If we insisted on choosing plants at our own will and forced to plant an excess of species, it runs counter to the law of nature. Many years later,we would find facing with unfavorable conditions: either some plants wither or large amount of human capital and money protecting the"forest" with diversity would be kept invested in.

"Ecology" cannot be judged by our past experience. In a world where ecology slogans are ubiquitous, many design works are labeled as "ecological". They outwardly look natural, green and environmentally-friendly, but in fact they bring more damage to the environment. As it is, many so-called ecological constructions are creating nothing but beautiful illusion.

Of course, ecological design would not even exist if we regard ecology as anentirely natural process without any human intervention.After all, design needs human participation, thus we shouldn't set human against the nature. Instead, human should be considered as an element in natural system. Based on such understanding, we can either minimize the negative impact of human on the environment or optimize natural system toward a positive cycle through our ecological design works.

Nowadays, the idea of environment protection is popular and widely supported. Whether it is the underlying influence or the ecological principle that dominate design, ecologism is a universal rule in today's landscape architecture design. Ecological design should become a basic requirement rather than attractive packaging."Ecology" should become a keyword throughout every step of our practices, which means all the design should be based on the respect for nature.

Ecology speaks for itself. We need to focus more on the design's impact on the environment instead of whether it caters to the stereotype of "ecology" in our mind.