Following runaway demographic, economic and industrial development over recent years, anthropic activity is deemed responsible for what is today called “the global ecological crisis” (for example: Hurricane Catarina, the ravages of the tsunami, the loss of diversity, the rarefaction of fishery resources, the increase in the price of raw materials, or even atmospheric pollution). On the contrary, the human race is also the only species acting deliberately and consciously to attempt to restore certain global balances, through the Kyoto Protocol, for example, or the Agenda 21 resulting from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In 1913, Frantisek Kupka, a Czech painter, and abstract art pioneer, wrote:  “Men are nature becoming aware of itself.” At a time when the planet is no longer in a position to absorb energy dissipation, at the dawn of the XXI century man is finally becoming aware of his impact on the environment and on future generations, and therefore wishes to implement sustainable development. 

 

The operational mode of megalopolises, based on wastage, is in crisis.  Areas are being defaced and strangulated, they are becoming congested and are impoverishing their natural biodiversity. As architects and urban planners, and in association with ecologists, we have a duty to attempt to speed up the natural healing and resilience  processes of ecosystems, through multidisciplinary ecological engineering techniques. Faced with the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of ecosystems, the reduction of biodiversity, water pollution, the concentration of greenhouse gases as well as global warming, renewable energy sources (thermal and photovoltaic solar power, wind, water, tidal, ocean thermal, osmotic, geothermal, biomass and fuel cell power, and biotechnologies  (biomimetics, physio-structure, phytoremediation, bioremediation, genetics) are high-performance tools to re-naturalise the Ecopolises of tomorrow.  

 

In search of human nature, the underlying objective is to intensify architectural project capacity in order to improve and protect the environment, and even restore its biodiversity.  This in order to allow our ecological debt to be repaid and stabilised   by minimising the human footprint, and ensuring that nature is able to manifest itself spontaneously and significantly in the affected area.  Within this framework, the architect’s primary raw material is alive, as a dynamic and functional element of its construction. It may therefore tend towards positive eco-compatibility of the outside structure within an ecosystem, which itself produces oxygen and electricity, by recycling CO2 and waste, purifying the water, and integrating ecological niches or biological corridors to feed and protect the fauna and flora that is naturally present, or in transit.