TEN ARCHETYPES OF NATURE IN DESIGN
1) PRIMORDIAL: Nature means earth in its elemental state, before humans. Within this archetype, the natural state is often that of genesis or beginning, such as an early (pre-human) bio-geological epoch, for a type of organism, or, for a specific organism, an early developmental stage.
Examples: Pangaea, and Precambrian to Mesozoic epochs.
2) EDEN: Nature is an idyllic paradise where all beings live in harmony, including early humans. Every human, animal, and plant thrives in tranquil equivalence. Notions of the noble savage, uncorrupted by civilization, characterize this period.
Examples:Biblical "Garden of Paradise" (Genesis), Arcadia, Animism, and Mother Nature.
3) WILDERNESS: Nature exists in mostly inhospitable, dynamic environments where indigenous species thrive and humanity lives on the edge of catastrophe. Adverse conditions such as storms, periodic floods, extreme temperatures, difficult terrain, poisonous vegetation, and aggressive predators dominate the landscape. Though cruel, the environment in which human influence is negligible.
Examples: Papua New Guinea, Grand Canyon, Kalahari Desert, Congo, Everglades, Marians Trench, and Amazonia.
4) AGRARIAN: Humanity has established enduring methods for self-sufficiency, advanced control of crop plants and domesticated animals, and bounteous provisions leading to food surpluses and population growth. Nature in this case is an instrument for cultivation and nutrient resource management. It is continually produced and hybridized in direct service of humanity.
Examples: Early Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Machu Picchu, and Jeffersonian planning.
5) GARDEN: Nature is controlled for aesthetic purposes. The beauty found in nature is transformed and aestheticized into a pleasurable cultural spectacle. Humanity uses nature as a prop to generate feelings of the sublime, the leisurely, and the pastoral, as well as conviviality and spirituality.
Examples: Versailles, Ryoan-ji, Keukenhof, Garden of Earthly Delights, and the hanging Gardens of Babylon.
6) INDUSTRIAL: The overuse of biocides, artificial chemicals, manufactured toxins, and disinfectants to control organisms that are deemed detrimental to human productivity threaten nature. Also, the indirect yet intentional pollution of the biosphere through constant resource extraction, unmitigated mechanized growth, waste creation, and sprawling development destabilizes our ability to find and recognize nature as such. Within this archetype, we can periodically lean on earlier meanings of nature (that is, we can greenwash our activities) without seriously threatening the industrial. This phase of nature is synonymous with the Anthropocene and/or Capitalocene.
Examples: Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Chernobyl, Bhopal Disaster, and Love Canal.
7) PRESERVATION/CONSERVATION: Preservation seeks to protect nature from human consumption, for example, by creating wildlife sanctuaries. Inversely, conservation regulates the use of nature in order to benefit humanity. Conservationists seek to foster a cyclic economy through the vigilant replenishment of biotic resources. Conservationists believe that natural resources can be sustained if they are cultivated, exploited, distributed, and re-cultivated under careful stewardship of humanity.
Examples: Yellowstone, Galapagos, Great Barrier Reef, and Gaia Hypothesis
8) SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL: Nature is regenerated through social and bio-physical schemes such as adaptive reuse, climate resilience, upcycling, ecosystem integrity and stress absorption, highly advanced sustainability, restorative infrastructure, continual evolution, and post-industrial thinking. These complex ecological feedback mechanisms achieve positive-gain characteristics or abundance attributes in relationship to design. In this variant, goals are set to go beyond zero-impact models and produce designs that manifest a plentitude of additional benefits towards ecosystem health.
Examples: Kalundborg, Masdar, Curitiba, Freiburg, Singapore, Portland, Arcology.
9) BIOSYNTHETIC: Nature is the product of the design and manufacture of novel biological components, device, and systems. In addition, technology allows us to reengineer existing, natural biophysical structures for programmatic human use. Geo-engineering is an extreme version of designing with nature, within this archetype.
Examples: Terraforming, tissue engineering, artificial bones, 3-D printed organs, ocean fertilization, algae-coated buildings, stratospheric aerosols, and afforestation.
10) EXTRATERRESTRIAL: Finally, we must include an alien organism that is not within the current superorganism of this planet.
Examples: Mars, orbital satellites, and asteroid impacts.
