Timothy Beatley: The Dualist Approach To Urbanisation

Over the past few decades, urbanisation has been developing exponentially across the world with more than half of the human population making their way into cities. Cities, as products of urbanisation, become magnets for people looking for job opportunities, excellent infrastructure and efficient transport facilities. However, the sprawling nature of expanding cities has taken its toll on surrounding landscapes, with wild plants and animals being replaced with concrete buildings and paved roads. This almost universal approach to urban development is causing humans to lose parts of their local identities, landscapes, biodiversity and environments. The damage to nature is further exacerbate with city-builders often leaving non-human lives …show more content…
However, contemporary urban thinkers and designers have come out with ideas and proposals that challenge the human-nature dualistic thinking. They are proposing for non-human life to be acknowledged, celebrated and brought into cities, considering the importance and the various benefits of nature to our species. These city-builders recognise the importance of daily human contact with nature. Furthermore, nature and natural systems are thought to bring numerous environmental and economic values to the city and its inhabitants. Public parks, green features and urban wildlife are good signs of the increasing acceptance for nature to be at the very heart of cities, but Timothy Beatley is taking it a step further with his idea of biophilic cities. Beatley defines a biophilic city as one that ‘learns from nature and emulates natural systems, incorporates natural forms and images into its buildings and cityscapes, and designs and plans with nature.’ Biophilic cities suggest that nature should be incorporated into the design fabric of urban settlements instead of being a mere addition or a secondary element to something …show more content…
The importance of nature to humans is highly celebrated and proudly manifested in the design scheme. Nature is no longer seen as the others or the rest, but rather is made up of unique, distinct individuals. Certain setbacks do occur by the presence of instrumentalism in which non-human lives are treated as passive and docile objects. Nevertheless, the decision to select a specific plant species to be included in the gardens, or the act of removing troublesome plants and animals, suggest that nature does have a certain extent of power to influence the actions of humans. In these gardens, humans and nature are equally altered. In conclusion, the Gardens by the Bay represents a successful ‘more-than-human’ architectural project that counteracts the human-nature dualism, and can be considered as a great precedent for future projects that see nature as valuable and important as the human