In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Design with Nature Now
  • Alan Tate (bio)

Presented by the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design to celebrate the 50th publication anniversary of McHarg’s magnum opus, this sparkling summer solstice event drew nearly 500 participants. It was supported by 20 sponsors, including Colony Hotel Kennebunkport, Carl and Roberta Dranoff, Biohabitats, ESRI, Hollander Design, James Corner Field Operations, OLIN, Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, W Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and WRT. Accompanying the conference were three summer-long exhibitions—Design with Nature Now: A global survey of ecological design in the 21st century, which formed a backdrop for many of the conference presentations; Ian McHarg: The House We Live in, reviewing his life and work; and Laurel McSherry: A Book of Days, video artwork created in Glasgow, McHarg’s home ground. Participants were welcomed by Dean of Design Fritz Steiner, noting that to date $6.8 million had been donated to the McHarg Center and that the proceedings of the conference would be published in book form with support from the Lincoln Institute.

The conference opened with two keynote speakers on Friday evening, followed by a full day of panel presentations on Saturday and four informal presentations on Sunday afternoon by authors of the work in the Design with Nature Now exhibition. Opening keynote Ursula Heise (Professor of English at UCLA, also teaching in their Institute of the Environment and Sustainability) addressed the role of narrative in reinterpreting urban dwelling and urban nature— particularly through the novels Tropic of Orange (1997) by Karen Tei Yamashita and New York 2140 (2017) by Kim Stanley Robinson, including the concept of optopia—the best possible world we can hope for. Erle Ellis (Professor in Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland) addressed whether we can “Design with Anthropocene” and provided an omniscient overview of how humans have engaged in ecological engineering—from the evolving impacts of agriculture to current aspirations for rewilding—concluding that humans are “cultural animals that shape everything” but who currently have only 15.5% of the Earth’s land under formal protection. Invocations of science fiction and science facts that might have worked well the other way around but, all-in-all, an absorbing but alarming start.

Saturday began with a series of Tributes to McHarg—from former colleagues and/or students— Laurie Olin, James Corner, Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, Dana Tomlin, and Brian Evans. The evergreen and always articulate Olin decried critiques of McHarg by “ambitious, young, aspirant members of the profession” as “simplistic and outdated” since “we can and must design with nature or it will design us out of the equation.” Spirn listed three things she learned from McHarg—the power of a book, the power of synergy between the academy and practice, and the power of an idea. Corner noted that “McHarg still lives here,” and that each head of Penn’s program has sought to interpret and build on his legacy. His lessons from McHarg included the value of big thinking, collaborative working, data-based design, and leadership from a powerful, passionate, public persona, although “we are still drowning in many of the same problems that McHarg addressed.” Evans [End Page 87] cited Design with Nature as one of the five books that changed his professional life and placed McHarg in the context of other influential Scots— including Patrick Geddes, John Muir, and Robert Grieve—who cherished the land as a part of life rather than a commodity.

Laurel McSherry (Virginia Tech) introduced her Book of Days and was followed by three panel sessions with three speakers each. The relatively short time slot for presentations and relatively longer allocation for subsequent armchair discussion was hit-and-miss, prompting some presenters to deliver a second monologue. First up were David Orr (Oberlin College), Allan Shearer (University of Texas, Austin), and Catherine Seavitt Nordensen (City College of New York). Each presented their views in the context of a project in the Design with Nature Now exhibition. Orr didn’t exactly do that, but he provided an uplifting exhortation to “think like McHarg thought” and to make design “visible, beautiful, tangible, and alive.” Shearer focused on Konjian Yu/Turenscape...

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