Ecology

Definition

Ecology is the study of the relationships between organisms and their environments. In this wiki it is extended from a natural-scientific discipline to a political and architectural category: Latour's "new climatic regime" reframes ecology as the condition in which Gaia — the Earth as an interconnected, responsive system — is no longer a neutral backdrop but an agent whose perturbations (climate change, the critical zone) demand architectural response. Kant, read through Morgan, provides the philosophical underpinning: his "cosmic" and holistic understanding of the world "is a necessary underpinning for any theory of sustainability, ecology and the cosmopolitan spirit." Ecology thus names both a scientific description of interdependence and a normative demand that architecture think at planetary scale.

Key Thinkers

• Bruno Latour — Gaia and the new climatic regime; the critical zone as the site of ecological politics.
• Immanuel Kant — the holistic, planetary understanding underpinning ecological theory.
• Albena Yaneva — Latour's ecological imperative for architecture.

Related Concepts

• Sustainability — the practical-normative demand ecology grounds.
• Gaia — Latour's name for the Earth as an active, responsive system.
• Cosmopolitics — the political form ecological thinking takes.
• Hybrids — ecology dissolves the nature/culture divide into hybrids.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Kant for Architects — ecology and sustainability as grounded in Kant's cosmic vision.
• Latour for Architects — Gaia and the architectural response to climate change.