Since Aristotle, we’ve been familiar with the concept that our world is made up of four elemental constituents.4These four elements make comprehensive, meaningful and also convenient categories for reviewing ecological impacts: mineral resources and pollutants, water, air quality and energy. But the elements are more than just earth-sourced minerals, water, air and fire. They’re also qualities of life and soul, and they are manifest as layers of our being – and the being of all living places and living situations (see Chapter 7).5
The four-layer consensus design process, in working through the physical, time- based, emotional and individual layers of place also connects us to the currents of the substantive, the fluid, the expressive and the inspirational: elements within our own selves as well as within society, situations and places. The more we are awake to the resonance in our own selves, the more consciously are we aware of what ele- mental imbalances or emphases do to places.
Elemental balance, as in forest or farmland, is about dynamic, ecological stability, namely life-vigour. Elemental emphasis, as in mountains, crashing waves or burning desert, is about raw power – the source from which modern living so disconnects us. We need both balance and emphasis, to physically sustain life and also as food for the soul. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of either in everyday life. Because this lack is mostly unconscious, we are normally only aware that something is missing in life. Some turn to risk-rich adventure (sometimes safer cyber-adventure), sensory stimu- lus, chemical stimulants or protective social cliques to fill this void. Others just find life boring, insecure or overpowering. The more, however, we can bring these issues to consciousness the better we can resolve them in our surroundings – with thera- peutic resonance in our soul.
The consensus process gives a multi-dimensionality to elemental issues which can raise their meaning beyond the merely physical. We recognize sunlight as not just for thermal energy but also to warm the soul. Likewise material is not just something to recycle, but is anchoring and rooting; water not just to conserve and clean but also to enliven us through its fluid mobility and rhythmical motion; and air not just an issue of pollution, but, particularly through sound and scent, an agent of emotional connection between, for instance, indoors and outdoors.
This gives deepening of meaning to the otherwise physically bound relationships of ecology. Also to the strong feelings we have about environmental issues; it enlivens the often archivistically dry matters of heritage and history; it makes tangi- ble the sometimes romantic, mystical, approach to ‘spirit-of-place’. It also clarifies what we, as humans, can contribute to places. Without this understanding it’s easy to view people as only destroyers of place, ecological balance and planet – for there is certainly enough evidence to support this view. With such holistic understanding, however, we can work as contributors to nature, to places, to society – this brings us nearer to the real, the holistic, meaning of the word ‘economy’.6
But don’t specialists know more than lay-people about ecology and how to design in an ecologically responsible manner? Of course – otherwise they wouldn’t be spe- cialists! Few communities have such skills among their members, so such people are invaluable. Without a consensus-based, multi-layer approach, however, ecological design can serve the ethically dedicated, but though its admonitory strictures may convince others of its necessity for human survival, it doesn’t necessarily have any great appeal. Indeed, imposed ‘ecological’ design is easily resented.
Once, however, we can connect material necessity with soul nourishment, the needs of nature with our own, and the needs of place with the needs of our activities there, sustainable design ceases to be an add-on extra. It becomes the obvious, even inevitable, way to do things. That is what the consensus design process is about.
Notes
34 Consensus Design: Why?
1 Agenda 21, signed by 179 nations at the UN Conference on Environment and
Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
calls for each community to formulate its own Local Agenda 21, through dialogue between local authorities, citizens, local organizations, and private enterprises. ‘Through consultation and consensus- building, local authorities would learn from citizens and from local, civic, community, business and industrial organizations and acquire the information needed for formulating the best strategies’ (Agenda 21, Chapter 28, sec 1.3). 2 And, management, improvements and
maintenance.
3 Providing, of course, they’re not high consumers of energy in their operation and maintenance.
4 Oriental tradition recognizes five: wood (living matter) in China, spirit (or breath) in India are fifth elements. These differentiations stem from their ingrained world outlooks. Mine, however, is European, so four I know, the fifth I only think. (See, for instance: Puri B.B. (1995). Vedic Architecture
and the Art of Living, Vastu Gyan; and
any book on Feng-Shui.)
5 For greater detail, see: Day C. (2002)
Spirit & Place. Architectural Press.
6 Economy: ‘1 a the wealth and resources of a community … [ … from Greek
oikonomia ‘household management’,
from oikos ‘house’ + nemo ‘manage’]’ (The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th edn (1995) Oxford University Press).