Does that require different levels of design?

Traditionally, there were three levels of design: (1) The components of the design, (2) the intended designed product, and (3) the system into which the product fit. As design process includes the planning of ecosystems, this means 3 higher levels of design must be addressed (notice that after the first sample, all apply to normal applications of design):

6. Global context

5. Regional context

4. Community (local) context: forest, city, corporation

3. Systems: ecosystems, traffic, industry

2. Products: habitat, houses, roads, plant sites, and

1. Components: trees, fungus, bats, rooms, cars, land.

 

Many problems occur at level three—and many more are to be expected at the new levels four, five and six. All levels of design need to be addressed, from the conceptual to the political, and be involved in all stages of the process. This involves new challenges for ecological design to:

• Relate a project to its total context (4-6 levels of design); be concerned as much with cultural survival, justice, and wilderness preservation as with efficiency and aesthetics.

• Consider the whole perspective (ecocentric, perhaps); the proper vision is of the whole community in which we dwell. Apply ecological concepts, such as networks and carrying capacity.

• Make designs are anticipatory, flexible, pluralistic, polyvalent, and polytechnic. Make open guidelines for long-term decisions.

• Essentially, work backwards from values and goals, and from the bottom up and inside out, drawing designs from the genius of unique places.

• Participate in place, care for all inhabitants, and assume responsibility for the designs.