H A N D E G Ü LT E K İ N

ECOLOGICAL DESIGN AND RETRIEVING

T H E E N V I RO N M E N TA L M E A N I N G

ABSTRACT

Ecological design can be defined as any form of design that minimizes the
environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes,
nature’s own flows, cycles, and patterns. Ecological wisdom or patterns of
awareness pertaining to nature is inherent in the traditional settlement forms,
which are the practices of traditional cultures and indigenous knowledge sys-
tems. In contemporary setting, engineering, architecture, and other design
disciplines are split from the local knowledge systems. As knowledge of place
or local knowledge is the starting point for ecological design, it requires an
activity of searching for patterns of awareness and retrieving the meaning of
traditional settlement forms.

INTRODUCTION

As a result of the ecological crisis, which is linked to the need to provide grow-
ing human populations a reasonable quality of life, an integrated understanding
of human societies and ecosystems is required. Human cultures and ecosys-
tems exist in a reciprocal relationship and new understanding of both nature
and culture affects the theory and practice of design. Accordingly, the efforts
of ecologists and designers are rapidly becoming important as to integration of
fragmented understanding of how landscapes – settlements, buildings, rivers,
fields, forests, etc. function as both ecological (natural) and cultural (artificial)
places. Integrated understanding is a deep and meaningful understanding of
places, including how each space is full of interdependent ecological and cul-
tural attributes (Johnson and Hill, 2002, p.7). Here, we have two accounts –
one coming from ecological or biological science, the other from indigenous
people. Scientific knowledge,the knowledge of the objects or features of the
physical world – plants, fungi, waterholes, hills, etc. – is transmitted by cul-
tural or indigenous knowledge as well. Either in scientific activity or in design
activity, phenomenological approach involves an intuitive understanding of
the things, objects or environment. This understanding develops through the
processes of thinking, perceiving, learning, remembering within contexts of
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A-T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana CI, 73–79.

c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
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people’s interrelations with their environment. Not only studies of indigenous

cultures or retrieval of the personal memory of natural and built environment,
but also encounters with sientific works like the Goethe’s can be – as David
Seamon phrases (Seamon and Zajonc, 1988, p.9) – a rewarding and revelatory
pathway for seeing more sensitively and for feeling a stronger kinship with the
natural world.
Studies related to place and environment suggest that mutual collabora-
tion of nature and vernacular culture does not currently exist. However there
are places where nature and culture coexist in positive and distinctive ways
(Forman, 2002, p.102). With a parallel view, hermeneutics claims that mean-
ingful environments have existed and still exist. They can be described and
interpreted through their meaningful patterns they manifest. If appropriately
retrieved, these patterns relating to natural and built environment can be
instructive in preserving old places and building new ones. Meaning and real-
ity can be found in these sort of environments which are distinct from the
environments associated with excessive nostalgia or techno-fetishism.
For Heidegger, to let the concealed, unthought and historical unfolding
reach us, we need a deep thought which is called “originary thinking”. He
also names his approach memorializing or “recollective thinking” (Mugerauer,
1994, p. 77). The task of interpretation in order to help reveal reality and
retrieve essential meanings can only be achieved by this approach. Consid-
ering the issues of meaning and value along with the notions of Dasein and
Being, Heidegger’s thinking appears as a crucial notion for design/planning
disciplines which face the environmental and social problems of contemporary
world.
What I put forward in this paper is that ecological design, with its concerns
relating to nature and culture requires careful, meditative, recollective thinking
and a phenomenological description of both natural and made things. In this
way, ecological design reaches the level of originary/retrieving interpretation
of environment and recovers livable places for people.

M E M O RY A N D M E A N I N G

Empiricist epistemology presupposes that objects are first perceived with their
particular properties. For Heidegger, this type of perception is not primary.
In fact, seeing is the interpretation of something as something in its context.
This context also makes up the background for understanding. Thus, Heidegger
prefers the term “circumspection” to the term “perception”. Circumspection
refers to the sort of looking that is always guided by our practical concerns.
But in traditional ontology, objects are just stared at and figure in perception or
observation (Hall, 1993, pp.128–129). The traditional account does not explain