Ecology and Design Thinking

I've recently attended a design thinking workshop which got me thinking about how ecology and design thinking can be integrated. My first thought was that the study of ecology and natural systems could help a lot in designing a sound ecosystem and thus ecology could inform the process of design thinking in how to design for a sustainable harmonious ecosystem that mirrors the laws of nature.

A second though on how to integrate ecology and design thinking, which is not too far from the first thought, is that design thinking can be an interesting approach to use when attempting to design actual environmentally sound systems that are ecologically resilient and sustainable.

Design thinking process

I think that the study of design thinking would be a good step for me forward in order to get me closer to my ultimate goals which is effecting change in the current system through installing appropriate interventions which would lead to a more ecologically sound environment for humans to live in harmoniously and thrive in a sustainable way.

Heterogeneous Environments and Urban Design

One of the main reasons why I am studying ecology, besides it being my main passion, is to try and get inspiration from ecology on how to design our life in accordance to the laws of nature.

I was just reading in Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems and came across this sentence: "There are no homogeneous environments in nature." I previous quote from the same book read:

It comes as no surprise that a plant utilizing sunlight, a fungus living on the plant, a herbivore eating the plant and a parasitic worm living in the herbivore should all coexist in the same community.

Those quotes reminded me of civil engineer once saying on TV that when designing a housing project it is not appropriate to design such project to be inhabited by doctors only or by engineers only. The community must have a mix of people from different backgrounds in order to function properly as people need one another.

Genana Mall

Looking at Genena Mall, which is only two streets away from where I live, I find that as time passed by and along the years as more and more people come to visit it a community of peddlers selling cheap stuff has started to develop around the mall. They sell all sorts of stuff from food to clothing to odds and ends. They sell on the cheap.

This phenomenon has caused trouble to the main mall as it competes, in a way, with the 'decent' stores inside the mall that pay high rent or have paid for expensive shops. It also gives a less classy image to the otherwise upscale mall. A common way to 'remedy' this is to crack down on such illegal merchants through the local police.

In my opinion, and in light of the quotes above from the ecology textbook, I see that the real problem was in the design of the system itself. The mall was designed to cater for upscale clients through relatively expensive stores and completely ignored the rest of the community whether buyers or sellers who would naturally be part of the market ecosystem.

I do not have a specific solution in mind for this situation. All I know for now is that the design of that and other similar malls does not lead to resilience and does not comply with the laws of nature. Natural laws thus force themselves upon such broken design through the gradual buildup of illegal peddlers surrounding the mall which in turn leads to the use of excessive energy to repel such undesired 'parasites'. Had the system been designed in the first place to be more holistic based on the principle of inclusion rather than exclusions a more resilient community would have been there. Perhaps Dina Amin from Selouk could give us her design perspective on this one and shed light on the behavioral side of it.