Todd, Nancy & John. Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming: Ecology as the Basis of Design. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1984.
The authors of this hopeful paean to urban renewal define “ecological design” as “design for human settlements that incorporates principles inherent in the natural world in order to sustain human populations over a long period of time.” Sounds good. The Todds went to work on tackling this issue through the New Alchemy Institute, a research facility whose earnest motto is “To reform the land, protect the seas, and inform the Earth’s stewards,” a reference to the heart-on-sleeve New Age overlay that infuses Bioshelters.
The premise of this book is a supposition that with the proper guidance and direction modern metropolitan areas—currently seen by many as blighted infernos of filth and violence—may one day be reborn as verdant ecological havens of human cooperation. There can be little doubt that our cities, particularly those of the Third World, are in desperate need of some rigorous form of corrective renovation, and many of the general ideas set forth in this book abound with good sense and a fervently held hope for the future. It is when the authers suggest site-specific recommendations, however, that their thesis begins to resemble nothing so much as an inspired but functionally implausible pipe dream. One typically weird idea is to utilize the full biotic potential of New York City’s Cathedral of St John the Divine by turning it into a “bioshelter,” with “the interior of the roof area used for the mass propagation of fruit, nut, and ornamental trees, which could be used by millions to help reforest New York.”
Despite such quirky models, though they are not particularly uncommon in the book, the New Alchemy Institute is essentially a scholastic attempt at urban/suburban planning that emphasizes recycling, renewability, sustainability, and aestheticism. These are worthwhile goals, crucial to the future survivability of our beleaguered cities, and many of the Todds’ simpler propositions seem sound. Indeed, some of the basic mantras, such as those centering on the raising of crops and the creation of greenspace within inner cities, are already being embraced in places like Philadelphia (a town hardly known for its implementation of progressive notions), where communal rooftop gardens provide a regular supply of fresh summer vegetables for all residents.
The Todds would take the idea much further. Their book lists nine precepts that are put forth as guidelines toward a universal eco-architecture:
“1) The living world is the matrix for all design.
2) Design should follow, not oppose, the laws of life.
3) Biological equity must determine design.
4) Design must follow bioregionality.
5) Projects should be based on renewable energy sources.
6) Design should be sustainable through the integration of living systems.
7) Design should be coevolutionary with the natural world.
8) Building and design should help heal the planet.
9) Design should follow a sacred ecology.”
These ideas, abstract though some of them may be, are of inherent appeal and, in a perfect world, would be immediately embraced by urban authorities. And it is in the grim fact that these beautiful little theories will never be applied on any meaningful scale—unless ecological or economic catastrophe demands it—that we see the flaw of this book, and of the serenely oblivious New Age movement in general. Glancing through Bioshelters at the futuristic androgynous figures that populate the theoretical cities of tomorrow, we are subjected to several repeated themes. Everyone looks happy, wealthy, and tasteful, pleased to be living in their shining city where the sidewalks are paralleled by long greenhouses full of legumes for the treatment of urban sewage. There are no gang members lurking in the shadows, or even mischievous children lounging around waiting to break the sparkling glass. Nobody takes more than their share of the produce from the communally-tended farms, and no one gets mugged at night along the shady rows of fruit trees. The “sidewalk solar aquaculture” tanks, growing edible fishes and CO2-cleansing plants, are left unmolested by graffiti and thrown stones.
Fine and blissful—and eminently logical—is this realization of our potential for harmonious co-existence, but the imposition of the Todds’ urban fantasy would demand a tremendous rearrangement of society along communalistic and egalitarian lines, with strict policing, assumably by the government, to insure consistent conformity. Everybody in the city, claim the authors, would be involved in its upkeep, in the production of food, the planting of trees, and the recycling of waste. Like it or not. For everyone to experience the maximum safety and concord, an insectile synchronization would be necessary to weed out the unready and the anarchic, the rebellious and the perverse.
The City as super-organism, as a vast hive, with its inhabitants busily serving its needs in formic regimentation. This extreme form of “stewardship” smacks not a little of totalitarianism; yes, it may be better for us and our environment if we bow so completely to the social ecology engineers, but it would certainly spell the end of our peculiar, libertine American individualism, and of enlightened human freedom in general. One cannot dictate a change of human nature without limiting the full capacity of human beings: that potential is given birth only in an atmosphere of freedom and struggle. For me, the Todds’ realized utopia looked more like something dredged up from the benthic marl of Orwell’s or Huxley’s worst nightmares, and I rather doubt that Thoreau would feel comfortable in this restrictive atmosphere, no matter how capriciously benevolent. But perhaps in our benighted urban wastelands, where the natural world has been almost wholly extirpated and where the societal codes and restraints of civilization appear to be collapsing, such absolute discipline and vigilance is what will, or must, one day be realized.
The authors of this hopeful paean to urban renewal define “ecological design” as “design for human settlements that incorporates principles inherent in the natural world in order to sustain human populations over a long period of time.” Sounds good. The Todds went to work on tackling this issue through the New Alchemy Institute, a research facility whose earnest motto is “To reform the land, protect the seas, and inform the Earth’s stewards,” a reference to the heart-on-sleeve New Age overlay that infuses Bioshelters.
The premise of this book is a supposition that with the proper guidance and direction modern metropolitan areas—currently seen by many as blighted infernos of filth and violence—may one day be reborn as verdant ecological havens of human cooperation. There can be little doubt that our cities, particularly those of the Third World, are in desperate need of some rigorous form of corrective renovation, and many of the general ideas set forth in this book abound with good sense and a fervently held hope for the future. It is when the authers suggest site-specific recommendations, however, that their thesis begins to resemble nothing so much as an inspired but functionally implausible pipe dream. One typically weird idea is to utilize the full biotic potential of New York City’s Cathedral of St John the Divine by turning it into a “bioshelter,” with “the interior of the roof area used for the mass propagation of fruit, nut, and ornamental trees, which could be used by millions to help reforest New York.”
Despite such quirky models, though they are not particularly uncommon in the book, the New Alchemy Institute is essentially a scholastic attempt at urban/suburban planning that emphasizes recycling, renewability, sustainability, and aestheticism. These are worthwhile goals, crucial to the future survivability of our beleaguered cities, and many of the Todds’ simpler propositions seem sound. Indeed, some of the basic mantras, such as those centering on the raising of crops and the creation of greenspace within inner cities, are already being embraced in places like Philadelphia (a town hardly known for its implementation of progressive notions), where communal rooftop gardens provide a regular supply of fresh summer vegetables for all residents.
The Todds would take the idea much further. Their book lists nine precepts that are put forth as guidelines toward a universal eco-architecture:
“1) The living world is the matrix for all design.
2) Design should follow, not oppose, the laws of life.
3) Biological equity must determine design.
4) Design must follow bioregionality.
5) Projects should be based on renewable energy sources.
6) Design should be sustainable through the integration of living systems.
7) Design should be coevolutionary with the natural world.
8) Building and design should help heal the planet.
9) Design should follow a sacred ecology.”
These ideas, abstract though some of them may be, are of inherent appeal and, in a perfect world, would be immediately embraced by urban authorities. And it is in the grim fact that these beautiful little theories will never be applied on any meaningful scale—unless ecological or economic catastrophe demands it—that we see the flaw of this book, and of the serenely oblivious New Age movement in general. Glancing through Bioshelters at the futuristic androgynous figures that populate the theoretical cities of tomorrow, we are subjected to several repeated themes. Everyone looks happy, wealthy, and tasteful, pleased to be living in their shining city where the sidewalks are paralleled by long greenhouses full of legumes for the treatment of urban sewage. There are no gang members lurking in the shadows, or even mischievous children lounging around waiting to break the sparkling glass. Nobody takes more than their share of the produce from the communally-tended farms, and no one gets mugged at night along the shady rows of fruit trees. The “sidewalk solar aquaculture” tanks, growing edible fishes and CO2-cleansing plants, are left unmolested by graffiti and thrown stones.
Fine and blissful—and eminently logical—is this realization of our potential for harmonious co-existence, but the imposition of the Todds’ urban fantasy would demand a tremendous rearrangement of society along communalistic and egalitarian lines, with strict policing, assumably by the government, to insure consistent conformity. Everybody in the city, claim the authors, would be involved in its upkeep, in the production of food, the planting of trees, and the recycling of waste. Like it or not. For everyone to experience the maximum safety and concord, an insectile synchronization would be necessary to weed out the unready and the anarchic, the rebellious and the perverse.
The City as super-organism, as a vast hive, with its inhabitants busily serving its needs in formic regimentation. This extreme form of “stewardship” smacks not a little of totalitarianism; yes, it may be better for us and our environment if we bow so completely to the social ecology engineers, but it would certainly spell the end of our peculiar, libertine American individualism, and of enlightened human freedom in general. One cannot dictate a change of human nature without limiting the full capacity of human beings: that potential is given birth only in an atmosphere of freedom and struggle. For me, the Todds’ realized utopia looked more like something dredged up from the benthic marl of Orwell’s or Huxley’s worst nightmares, and I rather doubt that Thoreau would feel comfortable in this restrictive atmosphere, no matter how capriciously benevolent. But perhaps in our benighted urban wastelands, where the natural world has been almost wholly extirpated and where the societal codes and restraints of civilization appear to be collapsing, such absolute discipline and vigilance is what will, or must, one day be realized.
