Book Description:
The environmental movement has often been accused of being overly negative–trying to stop ”progress.” The Nature of Design, on the other hand, is about starting things, specifically an ecological design revolution that changes how we provide food, shelter, energy, materials, and livelihood, and how we deal with waste. Ecological design is an emerging field that aims to recalibrate what humans do in the world according to how the world works as a biophysical system. Design in this sense is a large concept having to do as much with politics and ethics as with buildings and technology. The book begins by describing the scope of design, comparing it to the Enlightenment of the 18th century. Subsequent chapters describe barriers to a design revolution inherent in our misuse of language, the clockspeed of technological society, and shortsighted politics. Orr goes on to describe the critical role educational institutions might play in fostering design intelligence and what he calls ”a higher order of heroism.” Appropriately, the book ends on themes of charity, wilderness, and the rights of children. Astute yet broadly appealing, The Nature of Design combines theory, practicality, and a call to action.
Table of contents :
Contents……Page 10
I. The Problem of Ecological Design……Page 12
1. Introduction: The Design of Culture and the Culture of Design……Page 14
2. Human Ecology as a Problem of Ecological Design……Page 24
II. Pathologies and Barriers……Page 44
3. Slow Knowledge……Page 46
4. Speed……Page 54
5. Verbicide……Page 64
6. Technological Fundamentalism……Page 72
7. Ideasclerosis……Page 79
8. Ideasclerosis, Continued……Page 86
III. The Politics of Design……Page 94
9. None So Blind: The Problem of Ecological Denial (with David Ehrenfeld)……Page 96
10. Twine in the Baler……Page 102
11. Conservation and Conservatism……Page 108
12. A Politics Worthy of the Name……Page 115
13. The Limits of Nature and the Educational Nature of Limits……Page 129
IV. Design as Pedagogy……Page 136
14. Architecture and Education……Page 138
15. The Architecture of Science……Page 146
16. 2020: A Proposal……Page 154
17. Education, Careers, and Callings……Page 163
18. A Higher Order of Heroism……Page 171
V. Charity, Wildness, and Children……Page 180
19. The Ecology of Giving and Consuming……Page 182
20. The Great Wilderness Debate, Again……Page 198
21. Loving Children: The Political Economy of Design……Page 209
Bibliography……Page 232
The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention
Author(s): David W. Orr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Year: 2002
ISBN: 9780195148558