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Introduction

Can we move nations and people in the direction of sustainability? Such a move would be a
modification of society comparable in scale to only two other changes: The Agricultural revolution of the
late Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution of the past two centuries. Those revolutions were gradual,
spontaneous, and largely unconscious. This one will have to be a fully conscious operation…. If we
actually do it, the undertaking will be absolutely unique in humanity’s stay on the Earth.
William D. Ruckelshaus (in Meadows et al., 2005, p.265, my emphasis)

This is where design comes in - a lightly regarded word with artistic overtones that has emerged as the
leading integrating concept for preventing environmental damage. … Design is the only term we have to
indicate that our plans, purposes and projects must now take into account several disciplines, rather than
one or two.
Paul Hawken (in Wann, 1996, p.xi)

The problem is simply how a species pleased to call itself Homo sapiens fits on a planet with a biosphere.
This is a design problem and requires a design philosophy …. The very idea that we need to build a
sustainable civilization needs to be invented or rediscovered, then widely disseminated, and put into
practice quickly.
David W. Orr (Orr, 2002, p.50).

Design is an expression of intention in and through relationships and interactions. The basic

intention behind the sustainability revolution is to provide a meaningful and humane existence

for every local and global citizen within the limits set by the natural processes that maintain the

health of ecosystems and the biosphere for this and future generations of life on earth.

Ultimately, sustainable design has to be health generating, salutogenic design across all

scales. The health of human individuals and their communities depends crucially upon the

health of the ecosystems, societies and communities in which they participate. Sustainability is

not a fixed state to work towards and ultimately achieve, it is rather the continuous process of

learning by which local, regional, national and international communities learn to participate

appropriately and therefore sustainably in natural process – both at the local and the global

scale.

How to provide for the real material and immaterial needs of Earth’s current population

without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs is a central question

in the discourse about sustainability. This is fundamentally a question of design! For the sake

of future humanity and the community of all life it is the question of design.
Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
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The revolution or transformation towards sustainable societies will be much more

fundamental than both the Agricultural and the Industrial Revolution. As a matter of fact, it will

require “a new industria l revolution” (Hawken, Lovins & Lovins, 1999, p.1; McDonough &

Braungart, 2002, p.6) with all its implications for architecture, product and industrial design, as

well as urban and regional planning (e.g. Todd & Todd, 1993; Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996;

Orr, 2002; Kibert, 2005).

Beyond that, the creation of a sustainable human civilization will require a fundamental

change in current agricultural practices (e.g. Pretty, 1998; Waltner-Toews & Lang, 2000;

Norberg-Hodge et al., 2001), a re-design of current education systems (e.g. Orr, 1992; O’

Sullivan, 1999; Sterling, 2001) and health care systems (Wilkinson, 1996; Stott, 2000; Waltner-

Toews, 2004), and a drastic change towards a political system built on subsidiarity as well as

national and international cooperation (e.g. Plant & Plant, 1992; Coleman, 1993; Shuman, 1998;

Hines 2000).

All these changes require a shift towards a more humane, holistic and quality-based

economic system (e.g. Schumacher, 1973; Costanza et al., 1991; Douthwaite, 1996; Henderson,

1999). The recent Design & Sustainability report by the UK Design Council highlighted the

important fact that “sustainable design is not a specialist area of design, but rather an attribute of

good design” (Richardson, Irwin & Sherwin, 2005, p.7).

First and foremost, the sustainability revolution is about being more conscious of and

responsible to the effects of our actions. It will also require us to go even further up stream and

pay attention to the way that our actions are the direct results of our attitudes and intentions

resulting in design decisions. The way we design is based on the fundamental beliefs and

values that shape our dominant worldview. Design is fundamentally worldview dependent!

There is an ontological source of our worldview, the root assumptions that define being

and existence: What is that which is? A designer’s attitude and the product of his/er creativity

will be very different if s/he regards culture as detached from nature and nature as a biological

and physical resource in a universe of dead matter marching towards maximum entropy, than if

s/he regards nature as sacred – as the primary ground of existence - and her/himself as a

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
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participant in and expression of this natural process, variously referred to as universe, Kosmos,

or the divine or the mystery.

This directly links to the epistemological source of our worldview, the root

assumptions, which define what is valid knowledge and how we can attain it. How can we, and

do we know? Our epistemology, or way of knowing the world and ourselves in relationship to

natural process is a root cause of our worldview, and the designs we create based on this

worldview. Considering sustainability from a holistic and integral perspective will require us to

develop sensitivity about the particular epistemological assumptions that lead to a particular

worldview and transcend and include it in a more comprehensive and complementary meta-

perspective.

Fundamentally the questions we need to ask are: What kind of epistemology can guide

us to sustainable design decisions? How can we integrate the wisdom of many minds and

diverse epistemological and ontological positions? Can we reach a collective consensus on

certain aspects of our worldviews that ensure we act in an appropriate and a sustainable

manner?

If our worldview influences our perception of, and participation in, natural process, then

the potentially most effective catalyst for the transformation towards a more sustainable society

is shifting our worldview. This highlights the importance of education as the means of re-

integrating cultural and natural processes.

Education for sustainability needs to provide basic ecological and social literacy. An

increase in the ability of every global citizen to make informed and responsible decisions about

his/er participation in natural and social process is a key factor in facilitating the transformation

towards sustainability. The ability to take decisions from a more holistic perspective and the

skill to design, create, and act in accordance with those decisions is a crucial prerequisite for

design in the 21st century.

One of the central roles of education is to increase our understanding of the processes

by which nature and culture interact. Natural and cultural processes form such an intricate web

of complex relationships that it would be purely theoretical and rather impractical to consider

them as mutually exclusive categories.

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
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Culture emerges from the relationships and interactions of biological organisms - in

particular human beings - with each other and their wider material environment. As such,

culture is best regarded as an expression - an epiphenomenon, or an emergent property - of

nature and not as an epistemologically created antipode to nature. Design in its widest sense is

the material and immaterial expression of a culture’s underlying intentions through interaction

and relationship.

Education is a powerful facilitator of cultural change. Education can change our

intentions. It affects the up-stream end of the design process – its source. Eco-literacy enables

us to participate more appropriately in natural process. Eco-literacy allows people to develop a

new kind of design intelligence that increases their ability and intention to meet their needs

within the limits of local ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole. Education for ecological

and social literacy is a form of meta-design or design at the paradigm level aimed towards a

sustainable re-integration of cultural into natural processes (see Wahl, 2005b).

The assertion that the terms ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ are themselves humanly constructed

abstractions in language, is a common academic critique of the kind of argument I am trying to

build. While rightfully highlighting the difficulties inherent in the use of language, such

constructivist intellectual masturbation has little survival value for the human species in the face

of the current crisis. It shows how deeply ingrained the Cartesian separation between mind and

body is in Western thought.

Such arguments take place exclusively in an intellectual space that is severed from its

biological and physical basis. I would urge anybody inclined to build his/her critique on this

approach to simply hold his/her breath for two minutes. In doing so, you will be reminded of

your own existence as a biological organism and a participant in natural processes like an

aerobic metabolism and its photosynthesis dependent need for sufficient oxygen in the

atmosphere.

Professor David Orr, who coined the term eco-literacy (Orr, 1992), and heads the

Environmental Studies Programme at Oberlin College, has been a long time advocate of design

along ecological principles. His notion of ecological design extends far beyond the creation of

sustainable buildings and products. He speaks of “remaking the human presence in the world in
Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
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a way that honours life and protects human dignity” and defines ecological design as “a large

concept that joins science and the practical arts with ethics, politics, and economics” (Orr, 2002,

p.4). Orr emphasizes:

Ecological design … is not so much about how to make things as about how to make things that fit
gracefully over long periods of time in a particular ecological, social and cultural context. … Ecological
design is not just a smarter way to do the same old thing or a way to rationalize and sustain rapacious,
demoralizing, and unjust consumer culture. The problem is not how to produce ecologically benign
products for the consumer economy, but how to make decent communities in which people grow to be
responsible citizens and whole people who do not confuse what they have with who they are. The largest
design challenge is to transform a wasteful society into one that meets human needs with elegant simplicity
(Orr, 2002, p.27).

This thesis takes Orr’s greatly expanded notion of ecological design as its point of departure and

explores how the conceptual basis provided by the so-called “new science”(Wheatly, 1999) or

“holistic science” (Goodwin, 1999a, Harding, 2001) may inform sustainable design from a more

holistic perspective. Insights from quantum physics, relativity theory, biocybernetics, chaos

theory, fractal geometry, earth systems science, community ecology, and the theory of complex

dynamic systems, as well as a renewed interest in the scientific methodology of Johann

Wolfgang von Goethe (1754-1832) have all contributed to the emergence of a new holistic

science, described by Goodwin as a participatory science of qualities (e.g. Goodwin, 2000 &

2001).

Such a quality-focussed approach to science pays attention to the lessons of complexity

as well as to the limits of the biosphere. Holistic science shifts the goal of the scientific

enterprise from the control, manipulation and prediction of nature to aiming for long-term

sustainability through appropriate participation in natural process (Wahl, 2003).

Holistic science and the even more encompassing holistic perspective to which it

contributes can inform sustainable design in the 21st century. Professor Goodwin, initiator of

the Masters programme in Holistic Science at Schumacher College and member of the Santa Fe

Institute for the Study of Complex Dynamic Systems, explains:

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
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A participatory approach to the life support system of the planet means that we must become more sensitive
and responsive to the subtle creativity of natural processes so that we do not destroy them through our
actions. Developing a science of qualities will help to cultivate that sensitivity while preserving the best
aspects of science as a cooperative, open, and democratic approach to understanding and living within
Nature (Goodwin, 1999a, p.9).

This thesis defines natural design as design that ultimately aims towards humanity’s appropriate

and sustainable participation in natural process. Natural design’s underlying motivation is the

maintenance or improvement of health as an emergent property of whole systems at the scale of

individuals, local communities and eco-systems as well as on a planetary scale.

Furthermore, the thesis introduces the concept of an emerging natural design

movement. It suggests that the greatest synergistic effect on the transformation of human

society towards more sustainable practices will occur when the diverse, already existing

sustainable design solutions are integrated into a coherent movement towards sustainability that

is engaged in trans-disciplinary dialogue about how to create designs that will prove sustainable

in the long-term.

Such a movement is beginning to coalesce around a common aim, which can be

described as the intention to achieve humanity’s appropriate participation in natural process as a

precondition for a sustainable human civilization. Design in its role as interdisciplinary

integrator and facilitator can provide the framework for a continuous dialogue that serves to

integrate sustainable modes of participation across all scales.

A system wide shift out of the strange attractor of unsustainability into the strange

attractor of sustainability requires scale -linking (Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996, p.34) design

solutions. There is a need to integrate the diverse range of individual sustainable design

strategies into a mutually supportive movement. This integration has to span the scales of

product design, architecture, community design, sustainable construction, urban design, and

industrial ecology, to bioregional planning, and national and international co-operation in the

creation of sustainable health-care, education-systems, food-systems, political systems and

transport solutions.

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
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In practice, such integration will only become possible if outmoded attitudes of national

competition and anachronistic striving for individual advantage are displaced by a co-operative

trans-disciplinary and trans-national collaboration in the creation of synergistic win-win

situations for all people and the planet.

The implementation of the vast majority of solutions will have to occur from the ground

up and include the full participation of an informed citizenry. To achieve such participation

people have to be empowered at the local level to take part in the decision-making process and

their access to education for sustainability will have to be ensured. People need a meaningful

and desirable vision of sustainability in order to actively engage in sustainable design.

Naturally, in a sustainable society or civilization by far the vast majority of the

population will have to follow a sustainable life-style. In the language of complexity science, it

turns out that sustainability may be an emergent, system-wide property that depends on the

behaviour and interactions of all the diverse agents that participate in the dynamic system as a

whole.

The most promising road map towards a more sustainable civilization lies in the linking

of sustainable design solutions across scales, and in emulating nature’s own design patterns of

networks within networks, along with increasing ecological literacy and citizen participation.

In a sustainable civilization every citizen will be educated and empowered to be an

ecologically and socially literate designer of his/er uniquely creative way of participating

appropriately in natural and social process. In a sustainable society, the ability to create designs

that are health-generating throughout the whole system will reside with the majority of citizens.

In a paper presented at the European Academy of Design conference in 2005, entitled

‘Holistic-Ecological Culture Design’, the Israeli Designer Victor Frostig speaks of a “change of

perception of design as a process that focuses on technologies and fields of application and as

such deals mainly with ‘possibilities,’ to a process that focuses on the sociocultural context, and

as such deals mainly with ‘meanings.’” Frostig explains “Design is regarded here as a value-

driven activity, designers creating practices, experiences, and meaning for people”(Frostig,

2005, p.1).

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
 8

This potential of design can be, and has been, abused to manipulate consumer society

into ever faster and more wasteful patterns of consumption. On the other hand, when it is based

on ecologically literate design principles and a bio-centric ethic, the power of design can be a

catalyst in the shift towards sustainability.

John Wood, of Goldsmith’s College at University of London, has initiated a design

think tank, with the name Attainable Utopias, whose participants are exploring the potential role

of designers in the visioning of more sustainable and humane futures. He emphasizes the need

for designers to engage in cross-disciplinary co-operation and a “professional discourse that

acknowledges the complexity of wholeness.” According to Wood, designers “will alternatively

need to ‘step further back’ in order to acknowledge the ‘bigger picture’ whilst engaging self-

reflectively in the system itself”(Wood, 2005, p.1).

While engaging in the design of individual products, we have to be simultaneously

aware of the kind of ‘meta-design’ these products effect in human culture and how they affect

the ways we relate to our social and ecological context. What kind of society uses such

products and how?

Chapter One introduces the theoretical framework within which this thesis is anchored.

Design is defined as intentionality expressed through interaction and relationship; and

complexity, fundamental interconnectedness, and unpredictability are discussed within the

context of ‘wicked problems in design’. An emerging holistic worldview is introduced and

contextualized. Spiral Dynamics is explored as a dynamic map of worldviews and values

systems, and as a tool for the facilitation of trans-disciplinary design dialogue. The integrative

framework of Integral Theory is summarized and the emerging concepts of integral ecology and

integral design are discussed. The chapter defines sustainability as a continuous process of

community based learning of how to participate appropriately in natural process.

Chapter Two begins by introducing a holistic understanding of health across all scales

of an interconnected whole. Salutogenesis is proposed as a guiding intentionality behind all

sustainable design. Various maps of the complexity of health are introduced to establish the

link between human, societal, ecosystem and planetary health. Tools for salutogenic decision-

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
 9

making and design are explored; as well as the notion of salutogenic meta-design; and the role

of the designer as a systemic health practitioner is discussed.

Chapter Three describes the emergence of what I have called the Natural Design

Movement, as the confluence of all historic and contemporary attempts to engage in appropriate

participation in natural process – and thus live and meet human needs sustainably. The chapter

explores the historical context of ecologically conscious design. It discusses the humanity-

nature dichotomy and the epistemological pluralism of the natural design movement.

Ecoliteracy, Ethics, and Aesthetics are explored as closely related issues within the

philosophical foundations of the natural design movement. Biological and ecological design,

biomimicry, biomimetics, and bionics are introduced as design oriented ways of learning from

nature. The chapter introduces the challenge of co-designing complex dynamic systems as

active participants in them. Salutogenic, symbiotic, synergistic, scale -linking design can guide

such responsible co-design within natural process.

Chapter Four focuses on the notion of scales of sustainable and ecological design. It

introduces the concept of scale linking design and explores the complex relationships between

temporal and spatial scales in salutogenic design. The following scales of design are covered in

detail: product design ecology; sustainable architecture, sustainable construction industry;

sustainable community design; industrial ecology; sustainable urban ecosystems; bioregional

design; and networks of national and international cooperation.

Chapter Five highlights ten important scale -linking design issues and explores them in

the context of the transition towards a sustainable human civilization. It begins by discussing

the crucial role of education and ecological literacy in cultural change towards sustainable

lifestyle practices. Sustainable food systems and the creation of locally and regionally based

food economies are introduced as powerful catalysts in the creation of a more sustainable

society. The creation of appropriately scale -linked economic systems, as well as a wide variety

of design tools for the creation of complementary currencies and monetary systems are

explored. Taking the ‘Soft Energy Path’ towards decentralized renewable -energy based systems

is presented as a necessary u-turn away from fossil fuel and nuclear energy based systems.

Further issues that are explored in this chapter are: sustainable consumption; natural capitalism;
Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006
 10

sustainable transport; the hydrogen economy; appropriate water care; and the central role of

Earth restoration.

Chapter Six explores the notion of design as a process to generate visions. It

emphasizes the importance of locally adapted, community-based visions in the process of

actively engaging citizens to participate in the shift towards sustainability. The emergence of

ancient and new meaning is discussed within the context of the evolution of human

consciousness. The role of spirituality and sacred design in the sustainability transition is

addressed. The chapter explores the relationship between biophilia and sustainable design, and

calls for increased bioregional sensitivity and a cosmopolitan bioregionalism. It ends with a

closer look at the role of sustainable design in the increase of quality of life, equality,

cooperation, community and health.

Professor Seaton Baxter, head of the Centre for the Study of Natural Design at Duncan

of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, proposes:

Designers and engineers need to learn and participate, at the highest level, in future state visioning, to
practice ecological design and to do so with a new ecologically ethical position. All three together are a
truly Gaian strategy, and what some are now calling – natural design (Baxter, 2005, p.5).

Introduction - Design for Human & Planetary Health: A Holistic/Integral Approach to Complexity and Sustainability
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl, PhD Thesis, Centre for the Study of Natural Design, University of Dundee, 2006