Design With Nature - Book Review 1

DESIGN WITH
NATURE
THE CITY – HEALTH &
PATHOLOGY
A REVIEW
NAME: BRIAN BOBY THOMAS (16)

VIMALNATH S PILLAI (34)
B.ARCH-19 / A
IAN L. McHARG
 McHarg (1920-2001) was one of the most influential environmental
planners and landscape architects of the 20th century.
 By “design with nature” McHarg meant that the way we occupy and
modify the earth is best when it is planned and designed with careful
regard to both the ecology and the character of the landscape.
The passage starts off with the introduction to an English Biologist, late G.
HEALTH AND Scott Williamson, who was preoccupied with the phenomenon of health.
PATHOLOGY Practically, there isn’t any accepted definition of health.

Question arises whether – Is Health the only absence of disease?
 The author of the book starts off with some of Williamson Scott’s
works and theories in this chapter.
 Williamson’s greatest distinction in health was as recognizable

HEALTH AND phenomenon as disease and,
PATHOLOGY
 Health in an individual was likely to be associated with health of
the family and indeed the community.
 He believed that physical, mental and social health were unified

attributes and there were aspects of the physical and social
environment that were their corollaries.
 In order to test his hypothesis, he created the Pekham Health
Center in a working class neighborhood of London.
HEALTH AND  Unhappily, within a very short period, the Second World War
began and the Community was disrupted.
PATHOLOGY  Nor was it possible to begin the studies after the war, as the Center
was nationalized
 Williamson died without the proof he sought, but certain that the
hypothesis was true.
 There was an attempt to identify the attributes of creation and
HEALTH AND destruction. The former was associated with complexity, diversity,
stability a high number of species symbiosis and low entropy.
PATHOLOGY  Regression and Retrogression in contrast were associated with

simplicity, uniformity, instability a low number of species,
independence and high entropy
Creativity could assume two forms,
HEALTH AND  The first of thee, negentropy, through the physical entrapment of
energy, notably in photosynthesis and in the successive ordering
PATHOLOGY
accomplished by animals with elevation in the phylogenetic scale,
through apperception and further, through those cooperative
mechanisms which are indispensable to increased complexity, and
thus evolution which are symbioses.
 According to the book, Using Darwin and Henderson’s definitions
HEALTH AND of fitness, it appears that the Earth is fit for life and all of its
manifestations, that the surviving and successful organism,
PATHOLOGY
species and community are fit for the environment.
 If this is so, then the fit creature or community is, by definition,

creative; the unfit or misfit, less than creative or reductive.
 As we have seen, fitness must be revealed in form, and so form
then reveals not only fitness but creativity. Form is meaningful,
HEALTH AND revealing the adaptive capabilities of the organism and the
community, it should also reveal – if we could observe this, these
PATHOLOGY
are creative.
 If health is indeed a synthesis of the factors of creativity and

fitness, then we have at hand a tool of inordinate value for both
diagnosis and prescription.
 Facing the poverty of Human Ecology, and intrigued by Scott
Williamson’s proposition as to the unity of physical, social and mental
health and their physical environments.
 McHarg persuaded a number of students that it might be enlightening to
HEALTH AND
identify the specific environments of pathology-physical, mental and
social, for the city of Philadelphia.
PATHOLOGY
 He suggested so, cause this would allow future generations of students
and hopefully more skilled researchers to investigate the correlation
between pathology and environment.
 As planners, landscape architects and architects, our competence lies in
manipulating the physical environment, but we are also responsive to the
idea that social processes are important to the design and planning
professions.
 Eight factors of physical disease were tabulated and mapped. The
data were provided in incidence per 100,000 and these were
PHYSICAL divided into three equal categories, the highest third being shown
in the darkest tone, the next intermediate and the lowest incidence
DISEASES
in the lightest tone.
 The diseases that were mapped included heart diseases,

tuberculosis, diabetes, syphilis, cirrhosis of liver, amoebic
dysentery and bacillary dysentery and salmonellosis.
PHYSICAL
DISEASES
SOCIAL DISEASES
 The factors of social disease that were collected and mapped included
homicide, suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, robbery, rape, aggravated
assault, juvenile delinquency and infant mortality.
 These present, in summary, a generally similar pattern to that for the

physical disease, but the area of the upper third penetrates less far into the
northeast and is much more heavily concentrated in the southwest. This
too reveals the maximum concentration in the center of the city, with a
large central area representing the bulk of social disease and the large
peripheral areas conspicuously less represented
SOCIAL
DISEASES
MENTAL DISEASES
 The information on mental health is the slenderest of all categories and
consists only of information on psychiatric inpatient unduplicated
admissions and similar information for children.
 These data for mental health show a much more diffuse pattern than for
either physical or social disease. While the preponderance remains a
central-city phenomenon, the distribution includes almost all of the city.
POLLUTION
 Three factors of air pollution were identified and mapped-suspended dust,
settled dust and the sulphate index.
 As shown in the map studied, factories accompanying Delaware River and

are concentrated in the south of the city coincide with the major
concentrated in the south of the city coincide with the major concentration
of these pollutants, which diminish with distance from these locations.
 Far northeast are conspicuously free of them.

ETHNICITY
 The Ethnic groups that were tabulated and mapped included Germans, Irish,
Italians, Poles, British, Russians and Non-Whites.
 These groups congregate in regions that together form a jigsaw puzzle.
 Negroes in the North and West Philadelphia,
 Italians in South Philadelphia,
 Irish in the Southwest,
 Poles in the East
 Germans in the near Northeast and Near North
 Russians in the North,
 British in the Northwest
MENTAL
DISEASES,
POLLUTION &
ETHNICITY
ECONOMIC FACTORS
 The factors that were identified and for which data were procured
included income, poverty, unemployment, housing quality, overcrowding
and the number of persons without high school education.
 These factors reveal that the poor and the underprivileged are concentrated
in a relatively small area is small relative to those occupied b the upper
thirds in physical, social and mental disease.
 The area of poverty is a heart of diseases, these extend considerably
beyond, and we cannot claim that poverty is the explanation for the
incidence of physical, social and mental disease.
ENVIRONMENT OF HEALTH
AND PATHOLOGY
 Each of the summary maps of physical, mental and social health have now
been presented independently, together with summaries of economic
factors, ethnicity and pollution.
 The pattern according to the studies are very clear that, the heart of the
city is the heart of Pathology and there is a great concentration of all types
of pathology encircling it. This persists with only a small diminution to
the south, but there is a profound distinction between the incidence in the
central and adjacent city and the northwest and northeast.
ECONOMIC
FACTORS,
ENVIRONMENT
& SYNTHESIS

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DESIGN WITH

NAME: BRIAN BOBY THOMAS (16)

PATHOLOGY Practically, there isn’t any accepted definition of health.

 Williamson’s greatest distinction in health was as recognizable

 He believed that physical, mental and social health were unified

PATHOLOGY  Regression and Retrogression in contrast were associated with

 If this is so, then the fit creature or community is, by definition,

 If health is indeed a synthesis of the factors of creativity and

 The diseases that were mapped included heart diseases,

 These present, in summary, a generally similar pattern to that for the

 As shown in the map studied, factories accompanying Delaware River and

 Far northeast are conspicuously free of them.

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