Building a Sense of Place - Center for Urban Green Spaces

Thinking Aloud
Ingrid Leman Stefanovic
Cities and Nature
Building a Sense
of Place
“To build thoughtfully means that
we must seek to preserve or build
a sense of place – and doing so is
less a calculative craft than an art
of uncovering a holistic fit and
the right balance between social,
cultural, economic, technological,
regulatory, aesthetic, ontological
and ecological concerns.”
Four decades ago, at an
international conference
in Toronto, Canada, the
renowned anthropologist, Dr.
Margaret Mead, raised a point that
is all the more pressing today. She
noted how, on the one hand, we tend
to think that it is “natural” for bees
to build their hives and for birds to
construct their nests. On the other
hand, we envision cities as inhumane
concrete jungles. Yet, the fact is that
it is no less “natural” for human
beings to build human settlements
than it is for a beaver to build its dam
or a fox to seek shelter in its den.
Certainly, what is unnatural and
ultimately unwise is the design and
Ingrid Leman Stefanovic is Professor of
Philosophy, University of Toronto, Canada
(Email: ingrid.stefanovic@utoronto.ca)
construction of such urban spaces
in isolation from, and oblivious to,
broader ecological contexts. In that
respect, it is time to integrate the
The study of urban
ecology is taking off…
There is nature in the city.
The city is part of nature.”
Charles Redman
Director, Arizona State University Center
for Environmental Studies.
“urban” and the “environmental” by
building truly natural cities.
What is a natural city? The term
points primarily to a different way of
thinking, that is the condition of the
possibility of new forms of planning,
design and construction. That
visionary way of thinking reflects
deeper values of sustainability;
of holistic, interdisciplinary
collaboration; of respect for the fact
that we did not create this planet
but are beholden to it for our very
existence.
In many ways, modern urban design
has been driven by what the German
philosopher, Martin Heidegger,
called a calculative way of thinking,
rooted in technical efficiency and in a
belief that the reductionist, scientific
paradigm defines genuine rationality.
Master planning of highways and the
construction of massive dams have
been engineered primarily by way of
calculative thought.
However, Heidegger suggested that
such a calculative worldview, while
useful in its own right, still needs to
be supplemented by an originative
or meditative way of thought -- one
8 URBANATURE

Cities and Nature
Building a Sense of Place
A natural, healthy city provides
more than merely a collection
of discrete initiatives, but it is
a holistic phenomenon, serving
as the originative condition and
taken-for-granted ontological
ground for humans to dwell
safely and in harmony with the
natural world.
driven less by computing individual
material things but more concerned
with revealing the invisible and
often mysterious relation between
discrete entities.
How is such originative thinking
revealed in urban planning? The
concept of the natural city certainly
incorporates technical efficiency
of design, but it must also seek to
uncover originative meaning as
well. So for instance, designing an
urban core must include calculating
population growth projections,
developing efficient transportation
solutions and managing sustainable
energy use. It must rely upon new
technologies, such as green roofs, it
must incorporate urban wilderness
areas and it must build bicycle
paths and walkways that privilege
the pedestrian over polluting
automobiles.
But also, urban planning and design
must proceed as more than simply
a technical calculation of such
individual functions. For instance,
to build thoughtfully means that
we must seek to preserve or build
a sense of place – and doing so is
less a calculative craft than an art of
uncovering a holistic fit and the right
balance between social, cultural,
economic, technological, regulatory,
aesthetic, ontological and ecological
concerns. A natural, healthy city
provides more than merely a
collection of discrete initiatives,
but it is a holistic phenomenon,
serving as the originative condition
and taken-for-granted ontological
ground for humans to dwell safely
and in harmony with the natural
world. A natural city provides the
condition of the possibility of what
Aristotle called “a good life.”
In that regard, the natural city invites
a new ethic of place. “Ethics” here is
understood less as a listing of rules
and principles to follow but rather,
it points to the ethos of dwelling
itself as the contemplation of our
belonging to the natural world that
gives us life. Such an ethic invites
a careful listening and respect for
differences amongst cultures and
world views. It evokes a “reverencefor-life”,
as humanitarian Albert
Schweitzer put it, and a recognition
that human beings are in the presence
of a rich, living presence of nonhuman
animals and ecosystems, all
of which are a valuable part of our
world without which our cities and
we ourselves could not exist.
To be sure, institutionally, we
continue to separate cities from the
natural world. The United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) sits
independently of the United Nations
Centre for Human Settlements
(UNCHS). Governmental “urban”
or “housing” Ministries and
Departments operate separately
from Parks and Natural Resource
units, as if urban and wilderness
areas were disparate entities.
Universities teach urban planning
independently from environmental
or forestry programs.
But the time has come for an
alternative vision – one which
re-integrates natural and urban
environments, first in the way that
we think and then institutionally,
socially, and architecturally in
terms of how we plan, act and build
genuinely natural cities.•
April 2013
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