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Design With Nature: Ian Mcharg. The Natural History Press, New York, Ny, 1969. Review by Ashleigh Grose

Ian McHarg's book Design with Nature from 1967 pioneered the consideration of ecology in urban planning. It illustrated how the built environment and nature can coexist without detrimental effects through understanding their relationships. McHarg developed an overlay method for quantifying and displaying spatial information, a precursor to modern GIS. While critical of sprawl and car dependence, the book was groundbreaking and influenced fields like environmental assessment and sustainability. It remains recommended for planners and landscape architects.

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151 views1 page

Design With Nature: Ian Mcharg. The Natural History Press, New York, Ny, 1969. Review by Ashleigh Grose

Ian McHarg's book Design with Nature from 1967 pioneered the consideration of ecology in urban planning. It illustrated how the built environment and nature can coexist without detrimental effects through understanding their relationships. McHarg developed an overlay method for quantifying and displaying spatial information, a precursor to modern GIS. While critical of sprawl and car dependence, the book was groundbreaking and influenced fields like environmental assessment and sustainability. It remains recommended for planners and landscape architects.

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anusha8204
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Student Book Reviews

In the second semester of 2009, SOCI 314 Professional Practice students were required to write a book review as an assignment to help
illustrate and understand the range of planning literature . This involved reading at least one planning book thoroughly and discussing
them in class. The range of coverage was broad with contemporary to planning classics (like McHargs) being covered. Some of the students
thought there were some that were worth publishing and so did LPR; they are published below. Here are the book reviews of Design with
Nature by Ian McHarg, The Unsung Profession by Caroline L. Miller, Fuzzy Planning by Gert DeRoo and Geoff Porter and Digital Land by
James L. Sipes and Mark S. Lindhult.

Design with Nature

through design strategies such as New Urbanism and incentives


to use public transport. Criticisms aside, McHarg was a pioneer
of urban design and of the environmental movement; his work
has contributed to and influenced, among many others, environmental impact assessment, coastal zone management, river
corridor planning and ideas about sustainability and regenerative
design.

Ian McHarg. The Natural


History Press, New York,
NY, 1969.
Review by Ashleigh
Grose

During the sixties the environment played a small role in planning, due to the lack of ability to quantify and display spatial
information in a meaningful way. This is also due to the intellectual and philosophical perspective on planning at this time. The
overlay system which McHarg developed facilitated the development of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

The current urban design, planning and sustainability paradigms have their beginnings in the work carried out by author
Ian McHarg. The book, Design with Nature, published in 1967
is a culmination of his experience and knowledge of planning
and landscape design. It was truly ground breaking at the time
of publication and is widely recognised as a classic for modern
planners and landscape architects. McHargs childhood was
spent growing up in Glasgow. This experience aided an early
appreciation for the need for cities to incorporate and accommodate the qualities of the natural environment. McHarg left Scotland and later received an education at Harvard and was awarded
degrees in landscape architecture and planning.

I would recommend this book to anyone who will have an involvement in the landscape architecture or planning disciplines.
This book is the key stone to the way contemporary urban design, planning and sustainability is practiced.

Design with Nature covers an extensive range of ideas and is the


type of book that needs to be read several times to gain a full
understanding of the content covered. I believe one of the key
messages McHarg expresses is that there needs to be human
cooperation and a concern for the natural environment and
ecology when dealing with urban design. McHarg explores the
relationship between the built environment and nature, using
this to illustrate how both can be used to their full potential
without having detrimental effects on each other. This can only
be achieved through a willingness to recognise the importance of
ecology in urban landscapes.
Design with Nature was ground breaking due to the scale and
complexity of the issues it attempted to deal with in detail. Upon
reading the book, it appears McHarg has a close spiritual relationship with the physical environment. This is reflected in the
following quote this book is a personal testament to the power
and importance of sun, moon and stars, the changing seasons,
seedtime and harvest, clouds, rain and rivers, the oceans and the
forests, the creatures and the herbs (p5). The style of writing is
a merger of philosophical and ecological ideas and reflects a deep
connection to the physical world. It is also very apparent that
McHarg has a distaste for the city, at times referring to it as
God's Junkyard, bedlam, and dead grey tissue encircling the
nation (p23).
The only real criticism I would have of this book is that it reflects
the general conviction by academics during the sixties who
believed that suburban sprawl was the principal threat to the
natural environment. It falls short of the contemporary design
perspective, by mainly focusing on patterns of land use. This is
evident because McHarg accepts cars as permanent fixtures of
the environment, as he discusses how highways can be better
suited to the surrounding environment. This attitude contrasts
with current efforts to reduce the amount of cars on the road

Lincoln Planning Review

44

Volume 2, Issue 1, February 2010

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