The application of Ecological Design- Is it a universal model?

In creating a resource for ecological designs we are focusing on the NorthEast bioregion because we believe that ecological design is place based.  The unique solutions found in this database will not be useful in other bioregions, in fact they could be counter-productive.
But the concept of ecological design could be universal, no?  Lets take permaculture, which at its root is a design philosophy that was created largely in Australia.  When permaculture migrated around the world, many of its examples came with it, which were ecologically still rooted in Australian ecology.  It has taken a while for the rest of the permaculture movement to fully grasp their own ecology and integrate their solutions with the permaculture design approach.
I believe this to be the case with ecological design.

Śūnyatā 
शून्यता (Sanskrit noun from the adj. śūnya: "zero, nothing"), Suññatā (Pāli; adj. suñña), stong-pa nyid (Tibetan), Kòng/Kū, 空 (Chinese/Japanese), Gong-seong, 공성(空性) (Korean), qoγusun (Mongolian) is frequently translated into English as emptiness. Sunya comes from the root svi, meaning swollen, plus -ta -ness, therefore hollow ( - ness). A common alternative term is "voidness".

When you look at a house, what do you see?  The edges that define the object, or the connections that connect and integrate the house with the environment?  When you no longer view a house or structure as a definable structure, you have understood the concept of sunyata, and the basis of an ecological design approach.

JP Muhly recently stated in a conversation "simply looking a one component -- a house/structure -- is a bit to reductionist. The house/structure might better be put in the context of the community and the spiritual insights and inclusiveness necessary to allow it to survive".  

I believe this is a challenge of the Ecological House model, starting with its title.  In the west, we like to objectify things and deconstruct them into small, distinguishable parts.  But ecology does not work in this way.  Instead, ecology develops in relation to everything else.  That means when you look at one particular element of a system, like a house, in and of itself.  You are missing the big picture.  Not only that but it makes it virtually impossible to practically solve system based design issues such as energy, material selection, water flows or affordability.  That means that ecological cycles such as moisture, resource and nutrient flows, that are not normally considered a part of a house design,  must be a part of any ecological design solution. 
It seems the only thing universal in ecological design, is the emphasis to work with the local ecology.
 
Culture as Ecology
Is it possible for a house to be built without the support of a specific community?  Well, I suppose if you flew in a house with a helicopter and landed in a place that no one cared about, you could. But it is useless until someone inhabits it.  Otherwise, minimally, you would typically need a building permit in order to locate the structure in a community.
What I am trying to communicate is that it doesn't seem possible for a house or building to be "ecological" without being integrated not only to its local ecology but also its local culture or community.  You need people to build it, provide the resources and materials to construct it and the myriad of community connections required to support ecological flows of resources that are held by people.  Nutrient flows in human communities rely on people to close the gap.And every community will work differently and provide different processes and approaches based on who is part of the community.
Therefore an ecological house design needs to be based on and account for the local community.

All of this leads me to believe that an ecological design is not well suited for the idea of a universal design.  Again, this is why this blog focuses on the bioregion of the NorthEast of NorthAmerica.

As a part of the list of resources that should be seen to the right of the blog, "Ecology NE" should be a link to understand the local ecology of your site, which will be the basis for an "ecological house" in the NorthEast, but unfortunately no where else.  On the bright side, you may view this aspect as a wonderful pattern of biodiversity and cultural diversity where distinct vernacular styles can emerge from a place based sense of design.

What Is An “Ecological House”?

 Written by Philip S. Wenz, 2007

Do you want to live in an environmentally friendly house, but wonder what that really means? Does your house have to be loaded with expensive “green” gadgetry, or built with recycled tires? Is it practical to retrofit your existing house? Will your new “eco features” help the environment, or are they just more stuff to consume — trendy, but ultimately damaging to the planet?

Though there is no single, set definition of an environmentally friendly house it's good, at the outset, to think about what you're trying to accomplish. I've found the concept of the “ecological house” — new or retrofitted, big or small — useful for determining project goals.

An ecological house is modeled on the energy and material flows of natural ecosystems, and thus enhances rather than degrades the environment. Like an ecosystem, an ecological house conserves resources (energy, water, food and materials). It also produces resources, or at least gathers and stores more of them than it uses. The “extra” resources are distributed back into the larger environment to support life elsewhere.

A standard house, by contrast, is a resource sink. Life's essentials flow into it, are dissipated or degraded until useless, and are dumped off into the environment, sometimes as toxic waste. The flow is unidirectional, from source to sink to waste.

In an ecosystem, and in an ideal ecological house, there is no waste because the resource flow is circular. Like houses, ecosystems import energy — mostly solar, in their case. Unlike standard houses, however, ecosystems store their energy and reuse it. It's stored first as plant biomass, which is eventually distributed as food to the ecosystems' myriad inhabitants. Further, and this is the real key to the sustainability of ecosystems, the stored energy continues to circulate, as exchanged nutrients, until it makes its way back to the plants. In the scenario known to every sixth grader, plants make animal food and animals make plant food.

Ecologists and ecological designers describe this behavior of ecosystems as the closing of nutrient loops. Human habitation systems — from cities to houses — create one-way energy and material flows, leaving loops open. Ecosystems unconsciously practice the “reduce, reuse, recycle” dictum and have sustained themselves for billions of years. Human systems have been around for only a million years or so, and might not exist much longer if they don't start conforming to nature's rule that “waste equals food.”

How can you mimic nature and close a loop at your house? Compost your food scraps and use them to grow a garden. The standard, open-loop approach to consuming food eliminates nutrient-rich scraps as waste, which requires energy in the form of a garbage truck for disposal. If you turn your unused organic material into plant food and use the sun's energy to produce human food, you've closed a loop and reduced your family's demands on the larger environment.

As well as circulating nutrients internally, ecosystems contribute to life in their region and the biosphere by releasing unused food, water and minerals into their surroundings at appropriate times. Similarly, a “home ecosystem” can redistribute a resource such as “gray water” — for example, shower water, which is clean enough for certain uses — and store that water in plant tissue, say, in fruit trees grown on the property.

At harvest time, some of the water is circulated back to your family as fruit, closing a local loop, and some is expired for healthy recirculation in the atmosphere as the leaves dry up and drop off (as opposed to unhealthy and energy-intensive treatment in a sewage plant). The dried leaves, of course, can be used as compost and mulch for next year's vegetable garden.

The possibilities for creating intertwined closed loops are endless.

Using nutrients from your yard, you can profitably grow products ranging from hardwoods, bamboo and herbs to exotic fish. Your house can produce more electrical energy than your family uses and direct the excess to environmentally benign applications, such as heating a food-producing greenhouse in winter. Or, you can feed the public utility grid for credit toward your monthly bill.

The ecosystem model can be applied to all of the fundamental issues in ecological design. For example, optimizing a house's “life cycle” — the amount of energy and material needed to create the building, its ongoing demand on the environment and its final disposal—can be facilitated by observing how ecosystems use local resources and recycle materials. Nature herself is your best guide to designing and living in your ecological house.
 
 

Partners

What is a partner? And how do you become one?

A partner in the EHNE project is a person or organization that is committed to supporting the project through specific means, such as giving presentations on the project, holding workshops or working with people in some way that results in a documented product that is contributed to the project- ultimately the web based database.
Partners also can be media, or financial supporters.  EHNE needs media support to get the word out.  

To become a partner, please contact ben at bfg(at)naturaldesignbuild(dot)us.

Collaborative Design Project Launched

I have communicated with many different people about the idea of a collaborative design process towards developing an open source database on what an ecological house is, how it is made, what it is made out of and how it performs.  This database is created by the public as a collaborative process and moderated by a "core circle" of people who are facilitating the process.

This project is stored as a database online -eventually on a dedicated website with discussion forums and resources that list materials, costs, designs, etc.  The project also has a community presence through "partners" who host workshops, presentations and other functions that work to further the discussion and resources that are hosted online.

I have started this blog to begin to document ideas and build energy around this idea.  I am currently inviting people to send me blog entries that I will post, unedited.

The project is currently looking for partners to support the development of this process.