Keywords: ecological design, landscape design, urban design, eco-city sustainable landscape
In the 1960s and 1970s, rachel carson's Silent Spring awakened people from the dream of affluence in the industrial age. Lynn White reveals that the root of environmental crisis comes from the foundation of western culture, namely "Genesis" itself, while Garrett Harding's Tragedy of Public Resources reveals that resource exhaustion comes from the nature of human beings and capitalist economy. Donella meadows calculated the limit of the earth's resources and warned the crisis of human existence. All these lead designers to pay attention to nature from the intoxication of beauty and form and superior culture, and turn to the relationship between man and nature in other cultures. Designers begin to understand that using plants instead of artificial dams can prevent and control soil erosion more effectively, and using microorganisms instead of chemicals can keep water bodies clean more permanently. Solar energy is safer than nuclear fission; Sludge slope protection is more economical and durable than cement slope protection; Natural wind is healthier than artificial air conditioning. This is a new understanding of nature and culture. Under this background, it came into being in Macharg's Design with Nature (1969), which also produced ecological design in a wider sense, including ecological design of architecture, landscape and city, industrial and technological ecological design and so on. This paper will focus on landscape and urban ecological design.
The ecological design of landscape and city reflects a new dream of human beings, which has become increasingly clear with the process of industrialization and the arrival of post-industrial era, from the new harmonious industrial village of Owen, the pioneer of socialist movement, to Howard's garden city, eco-community and sustainable communities)(Walter, Arkin, et al,/kloc-0). Abberley,1994; Registration,1994; Rose Garden,1997; Wang Rusong,1988; Huang, Yang Dongyuan, 2001; Song Yongchang et al.,1999; Huang Guangyu, Chen Yong,1997; Shen Qingji, 2000; Li Tuansheng Shi Tiemao,1998; Wang Jun waits,1999; Ouyang Zhiyun Wang Rusong,1995; Zong, 1999). This dream is a real and comprehensive integration of nature and culture, design environment and living environment, beautiful form and ecological function. It will make the park no longer a specific land in an isolated city, but be integrated into thousands of households. It should involve nature in design; Let the natural process accompany everyone's daily life; Let people re-perceive, experience and care about natural processes and natural design.
1, on ecological design
"Design" is the conscious shaping of matter, energy and process to meet the expected needs or desires. Design is to connect nature and culture through material and energy flow and land use. According to the definitions of Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cown( 1996, p 18), any design form that is in harmony with the ecological process and minimizes its damage to the environment is called ecological design. This coordination means that the design respects species diversity, deprives resources at least, maintains nutrition and water circulation, and maintains the quality of plant habitats and animal habitats, thus contributing to improving the health of human beings and ecosystems.
Ecological design is not unique to a certain major or discipline, but a way to interact and coordinate with nature, which covers a wide range, including the architect's consideration of its design and material selection; Re-understanding of flood control methods by hydraulic engineers: industrial product designers save harmful substances; industrial process designers think about energy saving and emission reduction. Ecological design provides us with a unified framework, which helps us to re-examine the design of landscapes, cities and buildings, as well as people's daily life style and behavior. Simply put, ecological design is an effective adaptation and combination of natural processes, and it needs to comprehensively measure the impact of design methods on the environment. For every design, we need to ask: Is it beneficial to improve or restore the living world or to destroy it? Is it to protect the related ecological structure and process? Or is it harmful to them?
If we understand landscape design as analyzing any problems related to the use of outdoor space and land by human beings, proposing solutions to the problems and supervising the implementation process of this plan (Newton, 197 1), then the responsibility of landscape designers is to help human beings make people, buildings, communities, cities and human life live in harmony with the earth (Simmons, 2000). Then, landscape design should be the ecological design of land and outdoor space in essence, and the ecological principle is the core of landscape architecture. In a deeper sense, landscape design is the design of human ecosystem (Lyle, 1985). It is a minimal design with the limited help of natural forces, and a regenerative design (Lyle, 1994, p 10) based on the self-organic renewal ability of natural systems, that is, changing the existing input and output modes of linear logistics and energy flow, and establishing a circular process among sources, consumption centers and sinks. The landscape it creates is a kind of sustainable landscape (Thayer, 1989, 1993). However, as far as the current landscape design status of China is concerned, whether it is the flower beds on May 1 and 11, the landscape avenue, the city square, the rural "natural park" or the transformation of the new urban water system; From ordinary residential green space design to so-called "garden city" and "construction of landscape city", people see that non-ecological design leads to unsustainable landscape creation (Yu, Ji Qingping, 2000; Yu, 200 1). Therefore, it is necessary to understand the principles of ecological design to guide the correct landscape design.
2. Principles of ecological design
Based on the principles of ecological design proposed by Sim Van der Ryn and Stusrt Cowan( 1996), combined with the principles of human ecosystem design and regeneration proposed by John Lyle, the principles of sustainable landscape and visual ecology proposed by Robert Thayer and the principles of eco-city, and further combined with the current international landscape and urban design trends, several basic principles of landscape and urban ecological design are systematically expounded.
One of the principles: locality
In other words, design should be rooted in its position. For any design problem, the first question that designers should consider is, where are we? What does nature allow us to do? What can nature help us do? We often marvel at the rural layout in China and the beautiful houses in the Peach Blossom Garden. In fact, most of them are not designers' creations, but local people's creative designs that are in harmony with the natural process on the basis of long-term experience of places and deep understanding of nature. This principle can be understood from the following aspects:
First, respect traditional culture and local knowledge: the experience of local people, who rely on their living environment to get all the needs of daily life, including water, food, shelter, energy, medicine and spiritual sustenance. Everything in his living space is meaningful and endowed with gods. Their knowledge and understanding of the environment is the organic derivation and accumulation of place experience. Therefore, an ecological design suitable for a place should first consider the inspiration given by local people or traditional culture, which is a design about the relationship between heaven and earth, man and god. For example, in Ailao Mountain, Yunnan, the Hani people who lived here chose to live on the hillside at an altitude of 1500-2000 meters, where there is no cold in winter and no heat in summer, which is the most suitable for living; Above the village is the sacred Longshan Mountain, which is densely forested and misty. Below the village are terraces. The water source preserved in the jungle is long and flowing for the villagers' daily life. Water flows through the village and carries Dalian livestock manure to irrigate the terraced fields by itself. The rich and diverse animals and plants in mountainous areas have unique medical functions. Therefore, the mountain forest is the source of life of the whole habitat ecosystem, so it is regarded as sacred. The beauty of Hani terrace culture is precisely because it is the beauty of ecological design based on site experience. Villages in southern Anhui, such as Hongcun, can also see the same ecological design experience (Yu, 1992).
Second, adapt to the natural process of the place: the needs of modern people may be different from those of people who have experienced the place. Therefore, designing for the place does not mean imitating and sticking to the traditional form. Ecological design tells us that the new design form should still be based on the natural process of the place, with sunlight, topography, water, wind, soil, vegetation and energy as energy. The process of design is to integrate these natural factors with site characteristics into the design, thus maintaining the health of the site and the health of the design itself.
Third, the use of local materials: local plants and building materials are an important aspect of ecological design. Native species are not only most suitable for local growth, but also have the lowest management and maintenance costs. Due to the disappearance of native species, it has become the most important environmental problem in contemporary times. Therefore, the protection and utilization of native species is also the ethical requirement of the times for landscape designers.
Principle 2: Protect and save natural capital.
The natural resources on the earth can be divided into renewable resources (such as water, forests and animals) and non-renewable resources (such as oil and coal). In order to realize the sustainability of human living environment, we must protect and save the use of non-renewable resources. Even renewable resources have limited regenerative capacity, so they need to be used in the way of capital preservation and interest recovery, rather than killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Therefore, for the logistics and energy flow of natural ecosystems, ecological design emphasizes four solutions:
First, protection. Protecting non-renewable resources, as a natural heritage, should not be used unless absolutely necessary. In both eastern and western cultures, there are excellent traditions of protecting resources that are worth learning. They often protect special resources in the form of religious precepts and totems (Yu 1992). In the process of large-scale urban development, it is particularly important to protect special natural landscape elements or ecosystems, such as protecting wetlands in cities and suburbs and protecting natural water systems and forests.
Second, reduce. Minimize the use of energy, land, water and biological resources and improve efficiency. If natural processes such as light and geomantic omen are reasonably used in the design, the use of energy can be greatly reduced. The adoption of new technologies can often reduce the consumption of energy and resources by many times. Some scholars even think that human beings can get twice the living standard with twice the energy and resource consumption, which is the so-called factor four (Von Weizsacker et al., 1997). It is possible to achieve the sustainable development goal of the earth. To this end, a group of influential scholars and social activists established the world's "Ten Times Club" in 1994 (see von weizsacker et al., 1997). Even if species and plants are planted in different ways in urban greening, such as woodland replacing lawn and native tree species replacing exotic horticultural varieties, energy and resource consumption can be greatly saved, including reducing irrigation water, using less or no chemical fertilizers and herbicides, and being able to reproduce themselves. No matter how beautiful the urban greening is, it can also be a non-ecological project.
Third, reuse. Using abandoned land and original materials, including vegetation, soil and masonry, to serve new functions can greatly save the consumption of resources and energy. For example, in the process of urban renewal, closed abandoned factories can become citizens' leisure places after ecological restoration, which has become the general trend of urban landscape design in developed countries. As early as 197 1, landscape architect Richard Hager proposed to build a citizen's leisure park by using Seattle's gas plant site, and opened it on 1975 (see frankl and Johnson). Another similar example is the Emschel Landscape Park designed by German landscape designer Peter Ratz (see Brown B.J., 200/kloc-). The park was designed in 199 1 and opened in 65438+. It covers an area of 230 hectares and is located in Ruhgebiet, a major steel town in Germany. The design makes full use of the original factory facilities, carries out ecological restoration and tells the story of a brilliant industrial empire surrounded by green. Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, China has also made bold explorations in this respect. A shipyard in eastern Guangdong, built in 1950s and 1960s, was not completely demolished and leveled for real estate development, but was designed as an open leisure place for citizens by using existing banyan trees, factories and machines. Here, ancient trees tell the history of this site, and factories and machines have deeply imprinted the memory of this city.
Fourth, recycling. In the natural system, the flow of matter and energy is a closed-loop flow composed of "source-consumption center-sink", so there is no waste in nature. In the modern urban ecosystem, this kind of first-class is one-way, not closed. Therefore, when people consume and produce, they produce garbage and waste, so there is pollution of water, atmosphere and soil.
Land resources are not renewable, but the way and nature of land use can be renewable. From Yuan Ye, rural areas and high-density cities to garden suburbs, marginal cities and high-tech parks, with the succession of urban landscape, the attributes of one inch of land on the earth are undergoing profound changes (rest, 2000,2001). The large-scale pavement in the once high-density central city will be rebuilt sooner or later.
The ecological design of industry requires the closure of industrial production process, and a closed production process line can achieve two ecological goals. First, turning waste into treasure, replacing the demand for original natural materials; Second, avoid turning waste into pollutants.
Based on this concept, Lyle et al. (1994, p 10) put forward the theory of regenerative design, that is, the current linear flow is replaced by a circular system of "source-consumption center-sink" to form a regenerative system, so that the sink in the previous process becomes the source in the next process. According to Lyle's experience, there are twelve strategies in the design to realize the regeneration system:
1. Let nature do work;
2. Learn from nature and take nature as the background;
3. Integration rather than isolation;
4. Meet or better meet the multi-functional needs, rather than a single function or minimum requirements;
5. Properly pursue technology for the purpose of not excessively pursuing high technology;
6. Replace materials and capacity consumption with information;
7. Provide multiple solutions;
8. Seek to solve many different problems in the same way, instead of focusing on the matter itself;
9. Take the management of storage (including resources, energy and waste) as a key factor;
10. Create environmental forms and guide functional processes;
1 1. Create the shape of the environment to identify the process;
12. Sustainability is preferred.
Just as there is no implementable design without considering economic budget, there is no implementable ecological design without considering ecological costs, including resource consumption, pollution generation and habitat loss.
Ecological accounting methods mainly include:
One is life cycle analysis.
An outdoor piece of furniture in an urban open space may be made of Korean pine in Changbai Mountain in the northeast. After being transported to a place in Guangdong for processing, it will be transported to Beijing and placed in the venue. After wear, it will become garbage and enter the disposal site. This whole process includes the consumption of materials, water, energy and land, that is to say, the ecological cost of this kind of furniture should be considered in the design. A simple garden chair is actually related to the water quality of rivers, the state of forests and the degree of soil erosion in mountains. By investigating the environmental impact of the whole product life cycle, we can make an ecological evaluation of the designed and used products. We need to know the production process of products to decide whether they are economical, wasteful, toxic or harmless to matter and energy. Ecological design requires us to explore everything we use. What does it mean to sacrifice to produce them? What harm will their creation bring to people, animals and nature?
Second, energy flow and logistics tracking.
By maintaining the energy flow and logistics necessary for our living and working environment, including natural water, sewage flow, electricity, food flow, garbage disposal and the reuse of old things such as glass, we will be more sensitive and concerned about the systems that sustain our lives.