Picture a barrier island!

Charleston and surrounding farmsteads in the Sea Islands of the Carolinas' coastal zone.

Islands in the Stream

A typical cross section of an island: above) low relief, below) high relief with a mountain, both reveal zones to which life adapts.

Critical edges

Basic steps to a good design

Criteria used to judge any site, or place.

Criteria used to evaluate ecological design to replace dumb design

Ecological Design Activity

Values inherent in any site (a table)

What is value?

Productivity (ecological)

Ecological accounting informs us

Three approaches to ecological accounting all differ

Three laws of ecology

Landscape values

Carson's book: contents Edge of the Sea

Character of an Island -- a design project for the class

Comparing values of different land use

Using Jared Diamond to understand the choices we have made & must make in Collapse

Habitats

Rivers

Coral Coast

Marshes of the Ocean Shore

Reefs as indicators

Rocky Shores

Sand Beaches

Acting to reduce pollution

Making Waves book contents

Ecological Design Elements

Ecological Design briefly discussed

Social considerations in designing a place

Site Analysis

Syllabus

Related ideas

Ecology

Florida's natural conditions

Forested land

Habitat

Human Design

Islands' Study guide

Leopold's Taste for Country

Land by Aldo Leopold

Private Property

TCRPC Principles

Visual Learning

Water and Climate

Wildlife

The Chicago River, now flows in an opposite direction from what it did naturally.

Coastal engineering and the restoration of natural conditions along the shore are a real test of the prevailing faith of contemporary America.

Our faith in progress, as a national ethos, is related to the widespread belief that we as a people respect what works.

This aspect of our thinking is called pragmatism.

As a value, pragmatists test the verity or credibility of ideas based on how things function and what we do to improve how something functions to better meet human needs.

Pragmatism was a belief from the 19th century, popularized by Columbia University Professor, John Dewey (1920s) in his call to national service on behalf of common values of civic virtue.

John Dewey once said

"The essential need is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public."

• A democratic value of a well educated person in an ever more complex society can not be underestimated.
  

• This well educated person requires a safe intellectual climate and rigorous inquiry in a supportive and responsible place of higher education.

• Historically an American College is an outpost of the New England faith in literacy, the Jeffersonian belief in an informed citizenry as the foundation of freedom, and the training ground for creating and staffing the Progressive mission of a rational international order based on a well educated thinker.

• Such a person ought to be capable of developing expertise through analysis and synthesis of technical problems in a democratic setting with ethical constraints.

• When ethical constraints force people to reconsider action or designs, our education should be such that decision-makers are trained to change in order to adapt to both physical and ecological conditions, as well as, ethical traditions or local customs when working with communities.

Summary pages:

How nature's geometry informs ecological accounting in design?

Clues to the basic conflict in the Siry text.

The values of estuaries explained.

Carson describes what persists in the coastal zones.

Sample essay about Carson's importance.

Design • a summary sketch of five principles of ecological

The class related pages | ideas in brief | coastal engineering | Pragmatism & Dewey | Syllabus

Index to island plans

Grading Scale Criteria

Home for the course | map for island design | Site Map | Carson book | Schedule

home page research links