Libri | Progettare con la natura

Progettare con la natura, Ian L. McHarg, Franco Muzzio Editore 2007, Codice ISBN: 978-88-7413-152-5
È uno dei libri più importanti del secolo. A 35 anni di distanza dalla sua prima edizione, ha mantenuto tutto il suo valore iniziale, e leggerlo è sempre un piacere. Un libro guida per chiunque desideri progettare per il futuro.
Ribadendo la necessità di un intento consapevole, di una valutazione etica, di una organizzazione ordinata, di una deliberata espressione estetica nel trattare ogni parte dell’ambiente, McHarg pone l’accento non sulla progettazione o sulla natura in se stesse, ma sulla preposizione con, che presuppone cooperazione umana e compartecipazione biologica. Egli cerca non di imporre arbitrariamente la progettazione, ma di sfruttare appieno le potenzialità e, con esse, necessariamente le condizioni restrittive che la natura ci offre.
IAN L. MCHARG ( November 20, 1920- March 5, 2001 ) was a landscape architect and the founder of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. After working with the Royal Engineers during World War II, he was admitted to the architecture school at Harvard – where he completed degrees in landscape architecture and city planning.
His 1969 book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. It continues to be one of the most widely celebrated books on landscape architecture and land-use planning. In this book, he sets forth the basic concepts that were to develop later in Geographic Information Systems.
Ian McHarg was the original co-developer of The Woodlands, Texas an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Texas. This was developed from timberland, 30 miles north of Houston, by George P. Mitchell. That developer brought in McHarg to consult on the project. As a result, the original plans featured many unique designs.
Ian McHarg was born in 1920 near the industrial city of Glasgow, Scotland. His father was a minister there. McHarg showed early an early talent for drawing and was advised to consider a career in landscape architecture. In Glasgow he gained an appreciation of the need for cities to better accommodate the qualities of the natural environment, which had been largely shunned (Corbett, 1[citation needed]). But it was not until after his term in the British Parachute Brigade, serving in war-stricken Italy during World War II, that he was able to further explore this idea. After the war he traveled to America to attend Harvard University where he received his professional degrees in both landscape architecture and city planning. From here McHarg began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed the Department of Landscape Architecture, as well as offering a new course titled “Man and Environment” (Penn. Gazette, 1[citation needed]).
In 1960, he hosted his own show on CBS, “The House We Live In.” In 1969, he published his book Design with Nature, which was essentially step-by-step instructions on how to break down a region into its appropriate uses (Wenz, 2). McHarg said about his book,
Design with nature is sharply critical of the French style of garden design, which McHarg saw as a subjugation of nature, and full of praise for the English style of garden design, which McHarg saw as a prototype for his ‘design with nature’ philosophy. McHarg’s own plans for urban expansion projects were more ‘English’ than ‘French’ in their plan geometry. He favored what became known as ‘cluster development’ with relatively dense housing in a natural environment. McHarg was also interested in garden design and believed that homes should be planned and designed with good private garden space.
In 1966 he also was involved with several projects; the 1962 Plan for the Valleys in Baltimore County, Maryland; the Inner Harbor in Baltimore; the Woodlands in Houston, Texas; and regional plans for the Twin Cities of Minnesota, Washington D.C. and Denver, Colorado (Penn. Gazette,1).
Ian McHarg died March 5, 2001 at age 80 from pulmonary disease. Throughout his life McHarg sought a new union between man and nature.[citation needed] This was inspired by his childhood in the industrial city of Glasgow that largely shunned the natural environment.[citation needed]
Books
To Heal the Earth: Selected Writings of Ian L. McHarg 1998 ISBN 1-55963-573-8
A Quest for Life: An Autobiography Ian L. McHarg 1996 ISBN 0-471-08628-2
Design with Nature Ian L. McHarg 1969 ISBN 0-471-11460-X
Ian McHarg: Dwelling in Nature: Conversations with Students 2007 ISBN 1-56898-620-3

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