Ecological Wisdom and Inspiration Underlying the Planning and Construction of Ancient Human Settlements: Case Study of Hongcun UNESCO World Heritage Site in China

Traditional Ecological Knowledge versus Ecological Wisdom: Are They Dissimilar in Cultural Landscape Research?

Research into traditional ecological knowledge has become a reference in environmental management. This is followed by ecological wisdom that has emerged and has become a new discourse in landscape planning and design. However, traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom are similar in research and confounding when determining the research scope. Therefore, this study aims to define the distinction between traditional ecological knowledge and ecological wisdom in research through a systematic review of research articles, book chapters, and reviews published from 2017 to 2021. The selected primary studies were analyzed using bibliometric analysis run by VOS Viewer, followed by comparative analysis towards thematic codes. The coding process for the comparative analysis was conducted using NVivo. This study found that research on traditional ecological knowledge and ecological wisdom converges, especially on the topic of indigenous cultural capital, ecosystem services, and sustainability. The distinction between TEK and EW lies in their definition, agent, source, and scope. We propose a conceptual framework to understand the relationship between TEK and EW in the cultural landscape and clarify the scope of the analysis in this research. This study would help scholars develop research on both topics precisely and avoid bias in the theoretical discussion.

Bridging the science-practice gaps in nature-based solutions: A riverfront planning in China

Prominent gaps exist between science and practice in the field of nature-based solutions (NBS) worldwide, with relatively well formulated concepts but less clear application procedures. China urgently needs to address this gap because many so called NBS practices advance rapidly nowadays, including river landscapes. Advocating planning as a bridging procedure in China's top down governance system, this study introduces NBS planning for the Jialing River in Wusheng County to address three challenges: how to transform the riverfront planning from specialized to holistic, how to effectively communicate NBS in planning, and how to incorporate both scientific results and local wisdom into NBS decision-making. A planning scope was negotiated to incorporate holistic solutions. Five NBS paradigms were identified for better communication, and then spatially allocated with specific design guidelines and governance strategies. Our pilot study calls for reflection on the communication of NBS to the public, and alternative models of NBS implementations customized to different government regimes.

Fostering Urban Sustainability through the Ecological Wisdom of Traditional Settlements

Several African and Asian countries have embarked on building new towns to address urbanization challenges such as crowded cities, slums, and pressure on existing infrastructure. These projects have been criticized for being inadequate in fostering environmental sustainability. Based on a desk study, this article reviews the environmental sustainability challenges of these projects and recommends some ecologically embedded practices of traditional settlements that wonderfully survived for many centuries with little adverse social and environmental impacts yet offered opportunities for urbanism. The article discusses how the architecture, urban form, and green infrastructure of traditional settlements present excellent cases of ecological wisdom and embeddedness where the local ecosystems are respected, and every human activity, including the creation of the built environment, is defined by the ecological allowances, where resilience is part of the built environment at both micro and macro scales, and where humanity and nature are equal stakeholders living in unison. The article concludes that these instances of successful ecological embeddedness in traditional settlements can provide lessons for contemporary cities to ponder when envisioning more sustainable built environments for the present and future generations.

A Multidimensional Model for the Vernacular: Linking Disciplines and Connecting the Vernacular Landscape to Sustainability Challenges

After developing a systematic analysis of the vernacular phenomenon in different disciplines, this paper presents a flexible model to understand the multiple factors and the different degrees of vernacularity behind the many processes that lead to the generation of material culture. The conceptual model offers an open, polythetic and integrative approach to the vernacular by assuming that it operates in different dimensions (temporal, socio-political, sociological, locational, epistemological, procedural, economic and functional), and that the many attributes or characteristics included in those dimensions are all relevant but not strictly necessary. The model is intended to facilitate a more methodical and rigorous connection between the vernacular concept and contemporary discourses on sustainability, resilience, globalization, governance, and rural-urban development. In addition, and due to its transdisciplinary character, the model will enable the development of comparative studies within and between a wide range of fields (architecture, landscape studies, design, planning and geography). A prospective analysis of the use of the model in rural landscapes reveals its potential to mediate between the protective approach that has characterized official planning during the last decades and emergent approaches that advocate the reinterpretation of the vernacular as a new form to generate new collective identities and to reconnect people and place.

A Conceptual Framework for the Externalization of Ecological Wisdom: The Case of Traditional Korean Gardens

With the continuous effort for a harmonious coexistence with nature in human settlement, theories for ecological design and urban sustainability are proposed and developed. However, in 2014, a new concept called ‘ecological wisdom’ was proposed with the baseline that knowledge of ecological design should be gained from past sustained examples as ecological design problem spaces are unbounded. How can ecological wisdom from designs be acquired for reuse? The purpose of this research is to propose a conceptual framework for the acquisition of ecological wisdom and develop a detailed externalization methodology (a process of making tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge). Then, to see if it works or not, the methodology is applied to private Korean gardens of the Joseon Dynasty, which are renowned for being ‘naturalistic’. First, references from knowledge management (KM) are reviewed to claim that externalization step is necessary for the knowledge cycle of ecological wisdom. Then, for externalization, four steps are presented: (1) Case definition; (2) case deconstruction into geometric data and environmental data; (3) similarity calculation for each data types; and (4) matrix correlation between similarity matrices from geometric data and similarity matrices from environmental data. When the above externalization method is applied to 35 cases of private Korean gardens, yearly average temperature and proximity to the nearest river were the most correlated natural factors in terms of architectural spatial relationship in Korean gardens.

Sustainable Mountain Village Construction Adapted to Livelihood, Topography, and Hydrology: A Case of Dong Villages in Southeast Guizhou, China

A sustainable environment needs the effort and experience from both urban and rural areas. Some villages have achieved sustainability utilizing the concept of ecological stability. This paper takes the Dong villages in the Duliujiang River Basin in the Southeastern Guizhou as an example. Based on the anthropological “ethnographic text” and the morphological “village space information”, this paper analyzes the impact of the mountain rice livelihood model and different hydrological–topographic conditions on the spatial pattern of settlements, focusing on the sustainable construction wisdom. The findings are as follows: (1) Dong people’s migration follows the “River Valley–Mountain Valley–Mountain Slope” path, with maintenance of the rice livelihood model and, finally, derived from the “Mountain–Water–Forest–Paddy Field–Village” spatial pattern, the “Mountain–Water–(Pond)–Field–Forest–Village”, “Mountain–Water–Terrace–Forest–Village” settlement space patterns are formed. (2) The Dong’s settlements form a sustainable overall space. “Mountain–Water–Forest–Paddy Field” each play an ecological role and form an organic whole. Their management mechanism of utilizing limited natural resources has played an important management and supervision role. (3) The natural base of “Mountain–Water–Forest–Paddy Field–Village” is in accordance with their livelihood model and social culture, forming a unique ecosystem. It has become the basic environment for them to obtain survival sustenance, which still has prominent values today.

Environmental Features of Chinese Architectural Heritage: The Standardization of Form in the Pursuit of Equilibrium with Nature

We present a scientific discussion about Chinese historical architecture and cultural paradigms in order to analyze the formation of building patterns objectively connected to environmental features. In this regard, we will demonstrate the process of standardization from architectural modules related in different levels of composition around “voids”, onto cosmological urban tissues in harmony with nature. The conclusions show that we can only understand Chinese architectural patterns in relation to Dào or nature, and in turn, they possess profound social and environmental values from which we receive useful lessons to advance towards sustainability in architecture and urban planning. The authors believe that it is critical for China and the world to find a new approach to the building construction industry with an ecological and philosophical background recognizable as “Chinese” and based in its own past. In order to support the information provided in the first part of the article, the authors have conducted an environmental analysis of the traditional Chinese urban layout whose results greatly confirm the initial hypotheses, i.e. the historical fashion of constructing neighborhoods improves conditions of the town in terms of comfort and is able to save energy, thus reducing pernicious change effects.