ecological urbanism

Ecological urbanism should be a cyclical approach to the way we design things as opposed to the linear approach of energy-in-one-end/wastes-out-the other mentality. But shaping cities with the mindset that they should act more like ecosystems in such a rapidly growing world has proven to be one of the biggest human challenges of today. “The rate of population growth in many cities is so dramatic that conventional methods of planning are unable to respond to their rapid rates of transformation.” A more concentrated effort to bring a more integrated approach that is unified, focused, and pragmatic is not emphasized enough when such cities seemingly pop out of nowhere.   

I think one of the problems is the fact that the architecture and urban planning fields are fractured. “…ecological urbanism has the potential to respond to and transform other criteria that affect and shape cities, such as geography, orientation, weather, pollution, sound , and smell” but with the lack of a proper coherent approach for urban analysis or intervention, these ecological components subsequently remain just as ambiguous and detached from the wholeness they should embody.

Great cities have a continuous fabric and a coherent public realm to add to the quality of the relationship between architecture and landscape and an ecological approach is urgently needed as an imaginative and practical method for addressing existing as well as new cities. Design provides the synthetic key to connect ecology with an urbanism that is not in contradiction with its environment.

Caixa Forum, Madrid

Diagonal Mar, Barcelona

High Line, NYC