EcoDesign, A Manual for Ecological Design

Published by Wiley Academy, 2006
Written by Ken Yeang
Reviewed by Rand Ekman, AIA, LEED AP

ECODESIGN, A Manual for Ecological Design is fundamentally an instruction manual. Ken Yeang offers his thoughts and a great deal of specific content on how our built environment can, and must, integrate with the natural environment. The goal of ECODESIGN is to provide designers with a set of instructions so that the things we make become an “integral and benign part of life on the planet”. The book is not intended to convince, encourage, or cajole the reader into making environmentally sensitive design decisions. The book is neither about doom and gloom, nor is it about cheerleading. This is a comprehensive, technical, matter-of-fact text written by a preeminent architectural designer from an ecologist’s perspective.

For some, this matter-of-fact ecosystem approach is likely to be a conceptual shift from the current building design process. It is certainly a broader perspective on architecture practice than is typically taken. And it should be. The work of ecodesign is not about how to engineer an efficient building or how to efficiently integrate professional services (architects, mechanical engineers, lighting designers, civil engineers…), rather it is about the fundamental integration of the building and built environment with the natural environment. For Yeang, this is not a subject of discussion—it is an imperative. To use Ken Yeang’s own text:

Simply stated, ecological design or ecodesign is the use of the ecological design principles and strategies to design our build environment and our ways of life so that they integrate benignly and seamlessly with the natural environment that includes the biosphere, which contains all the forms of life that exist on earth. This goal must be the fundamental basis for the design of all our human-made environments.

In tackling such a large subject matter, Yeang employs a simple organizational strategy. The book is broken into three chapters: "General Premises and Strategies," "Design Instructions," and "Other Considerations." Each of these chapters is further broken into subtopics like the basis for ecodesign, design for water conservation, recycling, harvesting, and "green aesthetic.” Each of these subtopics is an independent resource. Yeang refers to these as “snacks” to be consumed as needed, and in any order useful to the reader.

"General Premises and Strategies" address the ecological and theoretical basis for ecological design. This section of the book introduces the ecosystem concept and how the work of designers must fundamentally engage the ecology of the place, the region, and the planet. Yeang argues that designers must develop a level of ecological literacy and approach their design work with this perspective. Engineering and technology are tools to be employed by the designer but do not themselves result in an ecological design. The employment of a technology may solve a particular problem, say a pollutant output, but may require additional energy inputs in order to accomplish the pollution reduction goal, the net result of which may be environmentally harmful. Design decisions must be considered in an ecological context. To aid in this task, a "partitioned matrix" provides a conceptual tool to evaluate the many factors related to decisions of any scale. This provides a framework to consider external interdependencies, internal interdependencies, system inputs and system outputs. The critical issue here is that interaction is considered, and design decisions are not isolated from the many other building and environmental relationships. While this approach tends to be often remote from current architecture practice, the message is crucial.

The chapter, "Design Instructions," is the majority of the book’s 440 pages. This chapter contains a great deal of remarkably useful information covering broad issues like the suitability of the building project at all, site evaluation, transportation impact, comfort conditions, and food production and independence, as well as detailed, specific topics like photovoltaic systems efficiencies, natural ventilation strategies, or timeframes for native plant colonization. This portion of the book is a truly enjoyable read. From the architect’s perspective the architectural impact on a great many concepts typically relegated to the engineer is one of the most valuable aspects of this material. Consider this is an instruction manual or a design primer. Consumed in whole, or as “snacks”, much helpful guidance can be found here.

In the final chapter, "Other Considerations," Yeang delves into some nontechnical questions like aesthetics, practice, and where we might be headed. There are interesting insights here that help to ground the eager designer in realistic approaches to our work. These insights include practical thoughts like, “In order to proceed, design must be selective and respond to the most significant issues within the context of the design problem.” They also include remarkably candid statements like, “does one species, bent on increasing its numbers and economic standards, have the right to proceed, at best unwittingly, at worst through ignorance and indifference, with this planetary-scale slaughter and devastation.” There is much to be considered in these pages.

This is a highly valuable resource to be added to one’s library of architectural design books. The organized approach to an enormously broad and complex topic is admirable. Although this organization is useful for arranging the material, it sometimes tends to compete with the content of the book. There are moments when the references to other subtopics in the book obscure the primary material being conveyed. The book’s format and graphic design also tend vie for attention with the content. While a criticism on noncontent issues may seem petty, there is such a wealth of information here, that it would be a shame if readers did not work past this difficulty. The design profession has an extraordinary ability to make real change. Ken Yeang and ECODESIGN offer needed thoughts to a dialogue that will be ongoing for quite a long time.

Rand Ekman, AIA, LEED AP, is director of environmental design at OWP/P, an environmental design consultant, and an architectural project manager.