Ecological Design - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 361

If it is not to become simply a more efficient way to do the same old things, ecologi-
cal design must become a kind of public pedagogy built into the structure of daily life.
There is little sense in only selling greener products to a consumer whose mind is still
pre-ecological. Sooner or later that person will find environmentalism inconvenient,
or incomprehensible, or too costly and will opt out. The goal of ecological design is to
calibrate human behavior with ecological realities while educating people about ecological
possibilities and limits. We must begin to see our houses, buildings, farms, businesses,
energy technologies, transportation, landscapes, and communities in much the same way
that we regard classrooms. In fact, they instruct in more fundamental ways because they
structure what we see, how we move, what we eat, our sense of time and space, how we
relate to each other, our sense of security, and how we experience the particular places in
which we live. More important, by their scale and power they structure how we think,
often limiting our ability to imagine better alternatives.
When we design ecologically we are instructed continually by the fabric of everyday
life—pedagogy informs infrastructure which in turn informs us. The growing of food on
local farms and gardens, for example, becomes a source of nourishment for the body and
instruction in soils, plants, animals, and cycles of growth and decay. 21 Renewable energy
technologies become a source of energy as well as insight about the flows of energy in eco-
systems. Ecologically designed communities become a way to teach about land use, land-
scapes, and human connections. Restoration of wildlife corridors and habitats instructs
us in the ways of animals. In other words ecological design becomes a way to expand our
awareness of nature and our ecological competence.
Most importantly, when we design ecologically we break the addictive quality that per-
meates modern life. “We have,” in the words of Philosopher Bruce Wilshire, “encase(d) our-
selves in controlled environments called building and cities. Strapped into machines, we
speed from place to place whenever desired, typically knowing any particular place and
its regenerative rhythms and prospects only slightly.” We have alienated ourselves from
“nature that formed our needs over millions of years [which] means alienation within our-
selves.” 22 Given our inability to satisfy “our primal needs as organisms” we suffer what he
calls a deprivation of ecstasy that stemmed from the 99% of our life as a species spent fully
engaged with nature. Having cut ourselves off from the cycles of nature, we find ourselves
strangers in an alien world of our own making. Our response has been to create distractions
and addictive behaviors as junk food substitutes for the totality of body-spirit-mind nourish-
ment we've lost and then to vigorously deny what we've done. Ecstasy deprivation, in other
words, results in surrogate behaviors, mechanically repeated over and over again, otherwise
known as addiction. This is a plausible, even brilliant, argument with the ring of truth to it.*
Ecological design, finally, is the art that reconnects us as sensuous creatures evolved
over millions of years to a sensuous, living, and beautiful world. That world does not
need to be remade but rather revealed. To do that we do not need research as much as the
rediscovery of old and forgotten things. We do not need more economic growth as much
as we need to relearn the ancient lesson of generosity, which is to say that the gifts we
have must move, that we can possess nothing. We are only trustees standing for only a
moment between those who preceded us and those who will follow. Our greatest needs
have nothing to do with possession of things but rather with heart, wisdom, thankfulness,
and generosity of spirit. And these things are part of larger ecologies that embrace spirit,
body, and mind—the beginning of design.
* See also David Abram's remarkable topic. 23