Design With Nature is Ian McHarg’s influential book that argued for planning and design guided by ecological science. Using overlays of maps and data, McHarg proposed methods to align human development with natural processes. The book became a cornerstone of ecological planning, but it also carried the risk of technocratic certainty—reducing landscapes to layers of suitability and constraint. It reflected a modernist faith in systems and control, sometimes overlooking the cultural, aesthetic, and contested dimensions of land. Still, it changed how design professions understand their relationship to ecology. For landscape architecture, Design With Nature opened the door to ecological thinking as part of design practice. Even if its methods today feel dated, the call to design in dialogue with natural processes remains foundational, a point of reference for both critique and inspiration.
In the conversation with the landscape architecture professor, artist and writer Denise Hoffman Brandt, we speak about the morality issues attached to “doing good” while debunking Ian McHarg’s problematic position in Design with Nature. In the conversation, Brandt points out how our assumptions about nature shape our actions, why stewardship is problematic and what landscape […]
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