Strategies of Ecosystem Development
Posted: August 20, 2013 Filed under: Urban Ecology | Tags: a grown world, ecosystem succession and architecture, ecosystem succession principles, future of cities, genius of place, scenarios of sustainability, up-cycling in biology, urban ecology 1 Comment
Source i09: Photos of Shanghai’s cityscape, with a 26 year gap. Read more about it here. Truly remarkable.
The amazing image above shows how much can happen in a city over 26 years. We know cities are growing at amazing rates, but these images are poor at capturing any tensions of over stretched infrastructure that struggles to keep pace. Slow development is never desirable in urban growth, but it is hard not to see dystopic visuals of urban decay as the cities struggle to pay their own environmental bills.
Conversations about ecosystem development as a strategy for solving human environmental crises are clearly not new. In a paper from 1969 recently sent to me by Bruce Hinds there is a rich account of the previous thinking and inspiration that has as of yet translated into human innovation. Some of the language and concepts in the paper are clearly out of date, as most of the resilience theory work and C.S. Hollings was not yet integrated, but at the core there are some really key concepts.
Core Trends of Ecosystem Succession
An Evolving Understanding of Urban Ecology
Posted: June 25, 2013 Filed under: Urban Ecology | Tags: Autodesk research, building science evolution, increasing complexity, OCAD University, the city as an ecosystem, urban ecology, what can we learn from ecology Leave a comment
Presentation for the Urban Ecologies Conference in Toronto
At the Urban Ecologies conference in Toronto on June 20 – 21, I presented with Bruce Hinds and Ian Clarke on Information and Complexity in Urban Ecology.
Sponsored by Autodesk, our research has focussed on biology and ecology as sources of inspiration for building science. As software becomes increasingly sophisticated in gathering and processing data, there is tension on how this will influence the design and management of buildings. If any information can be collected, what should be collected, and what is the purpose?
In our short review presentation we outlined our own evolution of inspiration and how we see it impacting the built environment.
Learning from specific organisms has been the base line for most of the practices of sustainability and biomimicry.
Organism – Barrel Cactus
Urban Ecosystem Succession
Posted: June 21, 2013 Filed under: Urban Ecology | Tags: adaptive capacity natural systems, ecosystem succession and architecture, ecosystem succession principles, urban planning and biomimicry 1 Comment
Link to the presentation for Urban Ecology Workshop at OCAD University, June 21 2013
For today’s workshop at the Urban Ecologies Conference at OCAD University, we are running a workshop on Ecosystem Succession and Urban Ecology. More information will be coming, but here is the presentation as a resource for the participants of the workshop:
Bouncing Ideas 
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