The legacy of Design with Nature: from practice to education

Abstract

With the publication of Design with Nature—50 years ago—what Ian McHarg did was open up a new door; he established a “new rule” to guide planning and designing our towns, cities, and regions that would embrace human ecology. Influenced by the intellectual guidance of his mentor, Lewis Mumford, McHarg can be credited with advancing ecohumanism in planning and design, both in practice and in education. The connection between human systems and natural systems lies at the foundation of ecohumanism and that becomes both a theory and a method to accomplish designing with nature. This alone would be the underlying thesis of Design with Nature. Just as important McHarg’s dual roles as a practitioner of landscape architecture and regional planning and as an educator have, along with Design with Nature, secured a legacy that has stood the test of time—and remains so for the future.