Designing With Nature

Design is a very human thing to do. It's one-way we humans express ourselves and make our mark in the world. Because of this, design is often not only human centric, it’s egocentric. The hubris and ego that is often involved in design of any kind, particularly architecture, makes it very hard to even understand what it means to design with nature.
 
Biomimicry has been a fabulous invention. The very act of getting businesses to think about nature as a resource has moved our relationship with nature light years into the future. We have become very clever now by watching and seeing what nature does we then try to do it in our own way, bending nature's wisdom to our needs and desires. One of the real benefits of this approach has been the ability to at least think about minimizing our resource use, nature is very thrifty. However, designing with nature is a whole different approach.
 
In designing with nature, it becomes apparent that nature needs space, so we need to allow nature to exist, to coexist, to be in proximity, to interpenetrate the spaces we use. In actual practice, this means making sure the green expands instead of our habit of reducing or controlling anything green. We must begin paying attention to nature's health, as well as our own health.
 
Nature needs time, it's not rushed. It's sometimes slow, it may even meander. It needs to be supported in this by having the space, the opportunity, to take the time that it needs to flower, to come into fruition, to blossom. We need to be conscious of the cycles it needs to function in and allow for the changes, over time, that nature brings forth. Our addiction to standards, stagnant appearances, simplified expressions, and easily repeated designs don't fit in with natures exuberance.
 
There's an exuberance about nature, a joyous expression of creativity that doesn't tolerate standards or constraints or stability or repetition. The recognition, expectation, openness to spontaneity, to emergence requires trusting the process, and loosening our attachment to outcomes. We need to design with emergence in mind and allow for the evolution of the design as real life contributes.
 
Working with nature is not an event, it's a journey. It's an exploration. It's a collaboration. It may be a cycle, but it's rarely an event. We get caught in events, but with nature, it's always part of a process.
 
Understanding the processes and patterns of nature and recognizing the need for that kind of expression is a way of being in tune and creating harmony with what's existing and with what wants to appear. In any dance, there's a leader and a follower. Allowing nature to lead can give us the confidence, the trust, and the feeling of safety that we crave, if we understand nature and how she works. Trust is not about blind faith, but in being confident enough to ask questions, and seek examples to put our concerns to rest. It’s about learning to see situations through Earth’s eyes.
 
Listening to nature requires the patience and depth to be in silence, enough grounding in science to understand the processes and cycles, and a depth in working with systems to see the patterns nature enjoys. The biggest shift, however, is putting nature first. By keeping the serpentine bend in rivers, water can serve the entire ecosystem. By allowing for flood plains, water can nurture vast areas on a continual basis. Our ability to ‘straighten’ rivers, put them in concrete beds, bury them underground and divert them hundreds of miles, subverts their nature and purpose. When we claim land to serve our own desires, we put ourselves in a situation of continually fighting with nature, which becomes costly, both financially and emotionally.
 
Nature LOVES life! By trusting that we can develop a harmony with nature, one that is especially needed as the Earth rebalances to adjust to the changes we have mindlessly made, we create resilience and robust health. Working together, we can co-create a new normal, one that serves us both.
 

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