Ian Mcharg

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IAN L. MCHARG

P.GAYATHRI-2014802004 U.KAAVIYA PRIYA-2014802007IAN L. MCHARG (20 November 1920 5 March 2001) INTRODUCTIONIan L. McHarg (20 November 1920 5 March 2001) was a Scottish landscape architect and a renowned writer on regional planning using natural systems. He was the founder of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. His 1969 book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. It continues to be one of the most widely celebrated books on landscape architecture and land-use planning.

Ian Lennox McHarg

LIFE HISTORYIan McHarg (19202001) was one of the true pioneers of the environmental movement. 20 Nov 1920 - Born in industrial Scottish city of Glasgow, he gained an early appreciation of the need for cities to better accommodate the qualities of the natural environment. 1950-1951 - After serving in World War II, McHarg went to the United States to attend Harvard University, where he picked up degrees in landscape architecture - 1950 and city planning 1951.

1954 - He was responsible for the creation of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. * The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues.

1960- McHarg, however, would not be confined to the halls of academia. In 1960, McHarg hosted his own show, "The House We Live In," on the CBS television network, an early effort to publicize discussion about humans and their environment. 1969 - The show, along with a later documentary, helped make McHarg a household name when he published his landmark book, Design With Nature, in 1969. In it, McHarg spelled out the need for urban planners to consider an environmentally conscious approach to land use, and provided a new method for evaluating and implementing it. LIFE HISTORY

Today Design With Nature is considered one of the landmark publications in the environmental movement.Layer cake method overlay concept1962- McHarg and his Harvard classmate David Wallace founded the design firm Wallace-McHarg Associates 1965- Renamed Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd, this design firm led the fields of city planning, urban design and landscape architecture during the 1970s by approaching design from an ecological perspective. Significant projects include the Inner Harbor Master Plan for Baltimore, Maryland, A Comprehensive Landscape for Washington D.C. and Woodlands New Community in Houston, Texas. 1979 - McHarg established his own practice after his resignation from the firm.LIFE HISTORYMcHarg was honored with numerous awards and medals, including the Harvard Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Art, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture and the Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Certified Planners. In April 2000, he received the Japan Prize in city planning. 2001 - Ian McHarg died on March 5, 2001, at the age of 80.

PHILOSOPHYDesign with nature had its root in much earlier landscape philosophies.Mcharg was critical of the french baroque style of garden design and full praise for the english picturesque style of garden design.

English picturesque gardenFrench baroque gardenFully and intelligently designed human environments with respect to the conditions of setting, climate and environment.

McHarg's quote came from Design With Nature, in which he laid forth the argument that form must follow more than just function; it must also respect the natural environment in which it is placedPHILOSOPHYPointing out that we build where we should farm, cut forests where we should grow them, and design forms where we should follow nature's morphologies.McHarg makes clear and comprehensible recommendations for reversing the destructive process of development. He focuses mostly on patterns of land use and the morphology of human settlements.McHarg views the automobile as a permanent fixture, and discusses how highways can be better situated in the landscape, not eliminated or scaled back. He promoted an ecological view, in which the designer becomes very familiar with the area through analysis of soil, climate, hydrology.Design with nature - define the problems of modern development and present a methodology or process prescribing compatible solutionswhat he argued was the arrogant and destructive heritage of urban-industrial modernity, a style he described as "DOMINATE AND DESTROY."

PHILOSOPHYWORKSIn 1954 McHarg was recruited by the University of Pennsylvanias Department of City and Regional Planning to become an assistant professor and to create a Landscape Architecture specialty. Mr. McHarg, founded the university's department of landscape architecture and regional planning 46 years ago and ran it for three decades.He was also an early advocate of restricting plantings to native species, both for philosophical reasons and because introducing a foreign species can sometimes disrupt the ecology of an area.In 1957 Wallace was hired by the Greater Baltimore Committee (a private association of significant stakeholders in downtown affairs 5) to create a plan for Baltimores torpid Central Business District (CBD). In 1960 he helped found the Philadelphia landscape firm of Wallace, McHarg, Roberts & Todd. In his practice, Mr. McHarg pursued dozens of projects, including regional plans for Denver, Lower Manhattan and Baltimore County in Maryland, as well as the design of the Woodlands New Community, a planned neighborhood near Houston that was acclaimed as an example of environmentally balanced development.

McHarg created a lecture series on Man and Environment,which once included 14 Nobel prizewinners in a single semester.The course morphed into a nationally syndicated television series with McHarg serving as the writer and the on-camera host. In 1962 Wallace was contacted by a private group of Baltimore Countys landed-gentry who found their estates at risk from suburban sprawl.They commissioned him to prepare a seventy square mile plan for Greenspring and Worthington Valleys. Recognizing that the plan would in large measure be one of landscape architecture, Wallace asked McHarg to join him. Together they formed the partnership of Wallace-McHarg, Architects, Landscape Architects and Environmental Planners, and took on the task of producing a Plan for the Valleys.

McHarg was to be the green-fingered planner who would use the principles of ecology in making choices as to where and how limited development might go forward. Wallace was to undertake the task of the brown-fingered planner in manipulating money, legislation, power, and urban planning so as to prevent despoliation.McHarg created an ecological planning method to explore the physical and biological processes that shape the landscape. Each layer of information was expressed in maps and superimposed on top of the previous one.

Wallace convinced the county government to permit the creation of village centers where affordable houses could be built at high density and with a varied mix of housing units, thereby accommodating an economically and racially diverse population.The resulting Plan for the Valleys became the template for planning growth based upon ecological principles.

McHargs starting point was usually a physiographic section, like that shown here. He argued that form must not follow function, but must also respect the natural environment in which it is placed. Note the placement of structures in the forested slopes which made them almost unnoticeable.

APPLICATION OF OVERLAY CONCEPT WITH GIS FOR THE VALLEY McHarg took landscape principles of aesthetics and applied these to maps

McHargs Basic Amenity Map portrayed slopes with wooded cover as a valuable asset, akin to a city park. Earth sheltered structures could be constructed on the slopes if they were embedded into the rock with a minimal loss of tree cover. Hence the term urban camouflage, or designing with nature

Mcharg usually began with a Physiographic Features Map.This example compared forest cover, aquifer recharge, 50-yr flood plain, streams, slopes >25% and impervious soils in a master overlay. In the early years these hybrid maps were constructed of acetate overlays on a cadastral base map.

McCargs Optimal Land Use Map combined physiographic features with existing infrastructure, development and zoning restrictions which were weighted to the taste of local residents and regulatory boards.

McHarg pioneered the use of map overlays to highlight intrinsic natural features, that commonly included flood zones, wetlands, woody vegetation stands, slopes, drainages, aquifer recharge zones, areas under cultivation and man-made features. Each asset could be assigned an arbitrary value, depending on societal input.

Physiographic features were catalogued as separate maps. McHarg would then overlay these to create a composite map illustrating physiographic obstructions. Areas containing multiple features would appear as the darkest might be valued more than lighter colored areas. McHarg also demonstrated that a plethora of societal traits could be represented on maps as well, and overlain in much the same manner as composite physiographic obstructions. These tended to mimic property values.

McHargs map overlay method gained national recognition in a consulting project for a 5-mile stretch of the controversial Richmond Parkway on Staten Island in 1968 McHargs hybrid map included ecological, political and aesthetic rankings that were combined with physical attributes to select a transportation corridor that would have the least impact on the residents

McHargs four Ms: Measurement, Mapping, Monitoring and Modeling. GIS allows a limitless combination of mapable attributes to be arbitrarily weighted and electronically combined to create hybrid maps; which are simply spatial representations using the Earths surface as their datum

Raster and vector data files emanate from differing methods of data collection and creation. Raster data files handle complex curvature typical of natural features while vector files favor linear, man-made features. GIS has evolved with computing technology. Today, raster and vector data can be combined with increasingly sophisticated digital imagery, manipulating large data files

In 1964 Inner Harbor Master Plan . In the course of the Baltimore work the Wallace-McHarg firm was expanded to include William H. Rogers and Thomas A. Todd as partners (WMRT).WMRTs Baltimore work provided it with a national reputation as downtown planning and urban design experts. Business boomed. Its 1966 Lower Manhattan Plan was followed with downtown plans for Buffalo (1968), Los Angeles (1970), New Orleans (1973), and Miami (1974). In 1973 McHarg applied his ecological inventory method while assisting the Denver authorities with a smog-conscious regional transportation plan. Later that year McHarg and Wallace worked together to utilize environmental information in the preparation of a San Francisco Bay Plan.In 1978 WMRT went international and designed the new capital of Nigeria. His most enduring contribution to the field, many colleagues say, is his 1969 book, "Design With Nature" (John Wiley & Sons), which urged landscape planners to conform to ecology, not compete with it. The book, which has sold more than 250,000 copies.A professor of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, McHarg was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1972.Throughout his career, McHarg remained active in ASLA's leadership and greatly contributed to the Society's mission and work. In 1975 WMRT began the planning phase of a project for the Shah of Iran, an environmental park to be called Pardisan, unlike any the world had ever seen. The park was to demonstrate the heritage of the Iranian people, as well as to illustrate the major ecosystems of the world .In 1996, McHarg published his autobiography A Quest for Life.

GIS AS LINK A BETWEEN GEOGRAPHY AND RELATED SCIENCES

The discipline of geography has a long intellectual history, and geographers have profoundly influenced patterns of immigration, settlement, and land use. The invention of GIS has changed geographys whole approach to spatial data analysis. The use of GIS with other technologies, such as remote sensing and computer science, has helped geography cross over into other fields such as ecology, forestry, landscape architecture, anthropology, urban planning, and business. The implications of connecting geography with ecology, resource management, and land use planning was articulated by visionary geographers decades ago, perhaps most convincingly by Ian McHarg in his landmark book "Design With Nature". GIS provides the toolbox for realizing the power of McHargs vision. In a GIS, landscapes are described as points, lines, areas, volumes all in terms of their location in a known coordinate system.

Diverse data types, be they physical, biological, or cultural, can be incorporated into this landscape representation, using a topology that retains their inherent spatial relationships. These innovations have revolutionized the way we work with spatial data and they we think about maps themselvesGeographic Information Systems allow the overlaying of data layers as diverse as satellite imagery, plant surveys, and bird abundance data. Different data layers can be queried simultaneously, providing deeper insight than might be possible with traditional analytical approachesAWARDSMcHarg was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Harvard Lifetime Achievement Award, the Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Certified Planners, and 15 medals, including the 1990 National Medal of Arts, the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture from the University of Virginia. In 1992, he received the Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. In 2000, he received the Japan Prize in city planning, which is presented to scientists or researchers who have made a substantial contribution to the advancement of those fields.