Highway 8 near Moscow Idaho

Revolutionary Ecological Design

The fitness of form combined with beauty

Why?

Nature is self-making and self-designing, but we humans now influence every natural system, taking what we need from some ecosystems, misusing others, and interfering with the rest. We need designs to restore balance between human needs and natural processes.

At SA, our ecological designs focus on whole communities that work in the same self-sustaining and self-limiting ways as nature. By consciously creating meaningful order, SA develops ways of producing widespread community wealth while positioning the community for a long, sustainable future in a healthy environment.

Who are we?

We are a core design group, generalists with a working knowledge of the arts and sciences, plus a talent for integration, who devote our efforts to creating and implementing ecological designs. We assemble teams of consultants--designers, architects, artists, ecologists, and engineers--for specific projects to work with corporate officers, government officials, military units, citizens groups, and planners. We are associated with the Marsh Institute, a nonprofit educational and research corporation; we donate 10% of all profits to charitable and conservation organizations.

What do we do?

We design communities. For corporations and neighborhoods, we recommend how to

revegetate yards and plant sites
reforest and replant fields
reclaim damaged and paved areas
integrate product and material flows into biogeochemical cycles; shift to renewable energy sources; recognize links and dependencies
adapt sites to functioning ecosystems to increase diversity and stability
mediate technology and community; redesign and reuse buildings
simplify and minimize maintenance
make alternate paths of education, communication, and financing

For towns and cities, we show how to

mitigate the problems of urban development, such as heat increase, waste, and water runoff
remake patterns of convivial activity to restore contact with nature and amenities in urban life
redo private and commercial developments
restore wilderness, conservation, and park areas
set an optimum population within resource limits and carrying capacity
internalize and manage costs and resources; minimize external subsidies
revitalize the sense of place and direct changes
promote diverse economies to become self-reliant and self- sustaining; coordinate and cooperate with other regions.

We design places as organic wholes to promote the well-being of individuals and the common good. We strive to employ all the characteristics of good design: right scale, place specificity, simplicity, efficiency, fitness, resilience, durability, and redundancy.

How do we do it?

We participate with you in a complete design process, guiding your involvement and commitment to the art of living together as a community.

First we review the situation, observing patterns of movement, population change, land use, building and development, boundaries, limits, and life. We conduct ecological and functional analyses.
Then we record all of the resources, from physical resources to cultural resources. We survey the area and create base maps, from geological to zoological maps.
Next we evaluate the interactions in terms of impacts, needs, goals, and limits. We assess the whole system and create a series of plans, from the site plans to value plans.
We start to design, which is a community process requiring the participation of all people (including the elderly, handicapped, and poor, as well those ultrahuman beings who cannot voice their concerns). We synthesize simulations and models (conceptual, capability, and suitability). We make another series of plans, from landscape plans to policy plans, within a master design.
Finally we implement the design together and start to maintain it. We use appropriate measures and techniques, emphasizing native species over an adequate time period to ensure the stable processes of transformation. We provide services for continuity and management.

Our designs are open, respectful, and continuing, derived from an understanding of natural processes, stability, and change, as well as from the range of human needs. We stress suitability, fitness, health, flexibility, frugality, maturity, and diversity.

How are we unique?

We address all levels of design, from the conceptual to the political, and are involved in all stages of the process.

We relate a project to its total context (a fourth level of design); we are concerned as much with cultural survival, justice, and wilderness preservation as with efficiency and aesthetics.
Our perspective is ecocentric; our vision is of the whole community in which we dwell. We apply ecological concepts, such as networks and carrying capacity.
Our designs are anticipatory, flexible, pluralistic, polyvalent, and polytechnic. We try to make open guidelines for long-term decisions.
Essentially, we work backwards from values and goals, and from the bottom up and inside out, drawing designs from the genius of place.
We participate in place, care for all inhabitants, and assume responsibility for the designs.

Our immediate goals are to reverse degradation and reclaim places for communities, but we also work to increase public awareness of the interdependence of communities, to create environmental quality, and to transform public values by generating new metaphors for living.

For information on our past and current projects or for free consultation, please contact: Director, RGC Designs, Email: garcia@riangarciacalusa.com

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