8/4/2019 Resource Centric Design_William a Aultman

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/resource-centric-designwilliam-a-aultman 1/4

Resource Centric Design: A Holistic Approach

By: William A. Aultman, 2009

U.S. Population per square mile 

In the current economic circumstances, planners and designers are

charged with the difficult task of doing more with less. By notpreventing the same mistakes and misconceptions made by theModernist movement of the second quarter of the 20th century, the

design community has, over the past couple of decades, reducedplanning and design to a formulaic and often homogeneous approachin the urban and suburban fabric. Their method: create a standardizeddesign process that results in a standardized appearance and functionthat ultimately relates to a uniform and familiar significance. Objectsand landscapes are normalized via the propagation of a secureperspective.  The environment is something to be consumed. We, as a nation, are privileged to have a large, mostly temperate

land mass; a diverse and relatively small population base; and a richand plentiful resource base. However, our inability to address theimplementation of an integrated design ethic at the regional level,has, in large part, contributed to planning and design that does notaddress energy conservation and resource consumption at the macrolevel. Sustainability is mere language, if there is no large-scale view,in real-time, of the energy flows that drive all of earths systems.Resource modeling at the regional scale is paramount to understandinghow basic, yet diverse, concepts like carrying capacity, soil stability

8/4/2019 Resource Centric Design_William a Aultman

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/resource-centric-designwilliam-a-aultman 2/4

and traffic volumes relate to events and objects at the end-user level:healthy communities, sound construction and thoughtful resourceconservation. 

The resulting concept is a region-specific system of detailed designdecisions that are rooted in a firm understanding of the naturalprocesses that support all living things, as well as the artificialprocesses that mediate the natural environment for human use. Thefollowing images attempt to illustrate a simple environmental motive:water and petroleum conservation as related to the decentralizationof conventional agriculture in favor of a localized food system. 

Total farmland as a percentage of total land 

Acres of corn harvested 

8/4/2019 Resource Centric Design_William a Aultman

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/resource-centric-designwilliam-a-aultman 3/4

 

Kilograms of the agrochemical Atrazine applied per acre 

Percentage of farms owed by a family or individual 

8/4/2019 Resource Centric Design_William a Aultman

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/resource-centric-designwilliam-a-aultman 4/4

 Mean percipitation 

This series of maps illustrates a simple spatial concept that relates

to a multitude of complex implementation strategies. The goal of thisparticular example of a Resource Centric Design strategy is thedecentralization of conventional agriculture in favor of sustainable, oreven surpassable, local food systems. In essence the maps here,produced from various but respected data sources, speak to theinefficient resource consumption and potential chemical abuses of anIndustrial Agricultural System and it's dependence on fossil fuels andunsustainable water management practices. This perspective of an

integrated agricultural system could lead to the formation of aplanning and design ethic that could holistically protect sensitivewatersheds, activate local economies and reduce petroleumconsumption significantly when applied at the regional level.

Source:ESRI,USGS,NationalAgriculturalSurvey2007