52
GERALD L. YOUNG
speed and control-the sort of ethos that has dominated the engineering
mentality in America for a century”. Fuller is, like Soleri, an excited
proponent of controlled “utopian” structures, in his case an ultimately
synergetic, technical, triangulated dome, a simulated environment of
maximum utilization and consumption, an environment that excludes
all the “bads” of natural conditions to the outside of the dome.
The ideas and designs urged by Soleri and Fuller are exciting and
unusual but that does not mean that they are soundly based in ecological principles. Comment here is of necessity too brief soundly to
examine their assumptions or presumptions but it is hoped that a t least
readers will be challenged to take a closer look. If indeed architecture is
to realize Soleri’s prediction that it will be the physical manifestation of
human ecology, then, besides architectural concepts, there must be
incorporation of something “human” and something “ecological”. This
is somewhat better stated by Holford (1970) who comments that “a
high rate of technological advance seems unlikely to lead to a new and
improved [built] environment unless equal advances are made in the
study of human ecology and social controls”.
The work of architects is readily open to criticism, more so than the
work of less applied human ecologists because it is more visible and less
abstract. It is easy, perhaps too easy, to criticize. But the situation in
architecture is far from totally negative (see Parr, 1963; Gruen, 1966).
Large numbers of professional architects are taking advantage of
research in the behavioral and environmental sciences, some are in fact
leading the way. Mumford (1972) has praised Artur Glikson’s work as
very ecological. The efforts of Christopher Alexander and his colleagues
a t the Center for Environmental Structure in Berkeley is praiseworthy.
So is the existence of a behavioral research department associated with
the Indiana architectural firm of Ewing Miller Associates. Zeisel (1970)
describes quite a number of good examples and there are undoubtedly
many, many others. The very existence of the new journal Design and
Environment is an encouraging development. The Dean of a new School
of Architecture and Environmental Design at the State University of
New York, Buffalo, points with pride to the “tossing out” of the timehonored architectural curriculum and its replacement by “a systemsoriented curriculum aimed at graduating broadly trained, society-serving
environmental designers rather than traditional architects” (Eberhard,
1970).
The challenge is that an architect today must be “more concerned
with the design of environments than with the design of monuments”
and, at the same time, “if he is really good at his job, he is performing
the function of an artist; he is helping to change that neutral thing ‘the
environs’ into something with character and personality-an environ-
GERALD L. YOUNG
speed and control-the sort of ethos that has dominated the engineering
mentality in America for a century”. Fuller is, like Soleri, an excited
proponent of controlled “utopian” structures, in his case an ultimately
synergetic, technical, triangulated dome, a simulated environment of
maximum utilization and consumption, an environment that excludes
all the “bads” of natural conditions to the outside of the dome.
The ideas and designs urged by Soleri and Fuller are exciting and
unusual but that does not mean that they are soundly based in ecological principles. Comment here is of necessity too brief soundly to
examine their assumptions or presumptions but it is hoped that a t least
readers will be challenged to take a closer look. If indeed architecture is
to realize Soleri’s prediction that it will be the physical manifestation of
human ecology, then, besides architectural concepts, there must be
incorporation of something “human” and something “ecological”. This
is somewhat better stated by Holford (1970) who comments that “a
high rate of technological advance seems unlikely to lead to a new and
improved [built] environment unless equal advances are made in the
study of human ecology and social controls”.
The work of architects is readily open to criticism, more so than the
work of less applied human ecologists because it is more visible and less
abstract. It is easy, perhaps too easy, to criticize. But the situation in
architecture is far from totally negative (see Parr, 1963; Gruen, 1966).
Large numbers of professional architects are taking advantage of
research in the behavioral and environmental sciences, some are in fact
leading the way. Mumford (1972) has praised Artur Glikson’s work as
very ecological. The efforts of Christopher Alexander and his colleagues
a t the Center for Environmental Structure in Berkeley is praiseworthy.
So is the existence of a behavioral research department associated with
the Indiana architectural firm of Ewing Miller Associates. Zeisel (1970)
describes quite a number of good examples and there are undoubtedly
many, many others. The very existence of the new journal Design and
Environment is an encouraging development. The Dean of a new School
of Architecture and Environmental Design at the State University of
New York, Buffalo, points with pride to the “tossing out” of the timehonored architectural curriculum and its replacement by “a systemsoriented curriculum aimed at graduating broadly trained, society-serving
environmental designers rather than traditional architects” (Eberhard,
1970).
The challenge is that an architect today must be “more concerned
with the design of environments than with the design of monuments”
and, at the same time, “if he is really good at his job, he is performing
the function of an artist; he is helping to change that neutral thing ‘the
environs’ into something with character and personality-an environ-