Design With Nature ~ McHarg on Planet Earth...

Perhaps the most memorable elements of volunteering at the founding summer session of the International Space University at MIT was attending the lectures. This is how I met landscape architect and regional planner, Ian McHarg, and then read his epic 1969 book Design With Nature. There McHarg insisted we look at the many aspects of the entire system we're designing when building streets, structures, and cities. That instead of having the hubris to fight against natural forces, to rather design in harmony with them. And he showed how to do this, with modern tools, analytic overlays, GIS mapping, and a fact-based approach. Beautiful stuff and more relevant than ever.