Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

With the inclusion of Declan Kennedy here, we now have in this Introduction section
three of the original Four Musketeers who started the Global Ecovillage Network.
Declan demonstrates the vastness of his experience with a truly comprehensive vision
of Ecological Design – a vision as enticing as it is practical. Since this vision is listed as
so many points, it also could be considered a comprehensive checklist of design criteria
for sustainable settlements. Declan emphasizes that ecological design is a process, and
since the biggest challenge the world over is the ‘ecological renewal’ of existing places,
this process invariably will include multiple stakeholders. The ultimate aim, according to
Declan, is to make places that are ‘easier to love’.
Design Criteria
A Vision of Ecological Design
Declan Kennedy – Lebensgarten, Germany
When an ecological settlement – and this concept covers both new
construction and renewal projects – works well both technically and socially,
it is not only the highest quality product that building and conversion can
offer at the present time, but also a process of development. It is a process
that changes people and their relationships to one another, as well as their
relationships to buildings, open spaces and supply and disposal technology.
The aim is to make a place easier to live in, easier to love, and consequently
more sustainable. My vision of an ecological settlement, whether it is a new
or an old one, a section of suburbia or the renewal of an existing area of a
town or a city, looks like this:
An Ecovillage of Diversity – where living and working are reconciled and
long trips to work are unnecessary; where social and cultural activities,
recreation and further training, community and individuality can exist side
by side.
An Ecovillage on a Human Scale – with neighbourhoods in which residents
can develop a direct relationship or a personal bond, but which have their
own character as well.
An Ecovillage of Nature Corridors – with woods, orchards, streams or
wetland marshes separating the individual areas and linking them to the
surrounding landscape; a place where plants and animals have room
to thrive, something which has become all too rare in our current
civilisation.