‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

SECTION A:

REDEFINING 
THE 
PROBLEM 
AND GOALS

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1 
Design 
for 
Eco-services
 
From design for sterility 
to design for fertility
Poor urban design and architecture kills more people each year than terrorism. In just two weeks in 
Europe, for example, up to 35,000 deaths resulted from the ‘urban heat island effect’ (which means 
cities are several degrees hotter than their surroundings).
1
More people reportedly died in one day 
from heat-related causes than died in the ‘9/11’ attack on the World Trade Center. The design of 
urban development both externalizes and conceals negative impacts. The rich tapestry of urban life, 
however stimulating, masks a resource transfer process that:
•
Harms human and environmental health 
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Destroys our means of survival (the life support system)
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Reduces secure access to food and water
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Reduces public space and natural amenity 
•
Chains us to the fossil fuel economy 
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Transfers wealth from the many to the few 
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Generates conflict over land and resources
•
Cuts off basic life choices for future generations
These negative impacts are 
not
inevitable. Many adverse effects are not a necessary consequence 
of physical development, or even of economic growth per se. They are a function of ‘dumb design’, 
to borrow Sim van der Ryn’s term.
2
It is not people themselves, but the systems that they 
design 
that create excessive waste, ugliness and poisons. From a biological perspective, humans do not 
produce any more waste or pollution than other animals: about six tons of poo in an average 
lifetime (which microbes could happily recycle for us). Therefore, on the physical plane at least, 
sustainability is a design problem. The good news is that since most negative impacts are caused 
by physical and institutional design, they can be reversed by design. However, few appreciate that 
the ‘built environment’ (cities, buildings, landscapes, products) could generate healthy 
ecological
conditions, increase the life-support services, reverse the impacts of current systems of development 
and improve life quality for everyone [Box 15]. This requires design based on positive thinking, not 
competition.

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4
Positive Development
The idea that development could be net positive seems too good to be true. This is partly because 
we cannot get to sustainability from where we are. Conventional ‘sustainable development’ criteria 
and design tools currently promulgated by planning agencies can not increase overall sustainability 
[Box 22]. As we will see, some even prohibit eco-solutions. For development to become the solution 
instead of the problem, it must provide the infrastructure for nature to regenerate, flourish and 
deliver ecosystem goods and services in perpetuity, through ‘design for eco-services’ [Box 1]. This 
is not only possible, but arguably easier than what we are doing now. The only impediment is fear 
of change itself. In addition, it will be argued, built environment design can also become a lever for 
social transformation as well as better environmental management.