ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 , titled “The Ecology of the City,” examines Ian McHarg’s conceptualization of design in terms of the operative processes of the nature. The discussion includes his restatement of the modernist mantra “form follows function” as “form expresses process,” and his use of a description of a deciduous forest that he appropriated from the ecologist Robert MacArthur to explain his intent. The chapter includes a discussion of an essay that McHarg wrote for Leonard Duhl, one of his guests on the television program The House We Live In, in which he presents an expansive theory of design that incorporates ideas that he had garnered from Morse Peckham on Western garden tradition and Paul Sears on stewardship. The chapter also explores McHarg’s study of the forms of nature, and his use of a beehive, nautilus shell, termite mound, and coral to explain how to live commensurately in the world, use resources wisely, and build with nature.
