Permaculture systems seek to stop the flow of nutrient and energy off the site and instead turn them into cycles, so that, for instance, kitchen wastes are recycles to compost; animal manures are directed to biogas production or to the soil; household greywater flows to the garden; green manures are turned into the earth; leaves are raked up around trees as mulch.
The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
The [Lake Erie] ecosystem underwent a series of changes, each of which were related. There was an increase in the human population; which led to higher phosophorus levels in the water; which led, at last, to an increased level of algae in the lake. In effect, Lake Erie’s ecosystem was rewritten. Changed by human activities into…something else.
But Franklin cites the study because it’s doing something slightly novel: applying Selye’s principle of stress to ecological systems, suggesting that they are, much like humans, just as susceptible to external stressors. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, especially this week. Because Franklin’s suggesting that the work begins not by “fixing the system.” Rather, she suggests it’s about shifting the priority a little: to removing whatever stress you can.
Some time ago, a friend insisted that people should not listen to practicing architects or read what they write. According to him, the lack of logic in our discourse, the incongruity of our words, and the overzealousness in readings brought about by the biographical revision of our work were of little value.
In his book The Eyes of the Skin, Juhani Pallasmaa approaches it from the opposite direction, but ultimately gives the same advice:
The verbal statements of artists and architects should not usually be taken at their face value, as they often merely represent a conscious surface rationalization, or defense, that may well be in sharp contradiction to the deeper unconscious intentions giving the work its very life force.