Geodesign Academic Roots

Ian McHarg was the first to describe the concepts behind geodesign in his seminal ‘Design with Nature’ in 1969. And proponents like landscape architect Jack Dangermond - the guiding force behind Esri, the world’s leading GIS (geographical information system) developer - have been talking about geodesign as a rigorous discipline in academic journals and conferences for years. But, in practice, automating the process has proven to be problematic.

McHarg presented geodesign as stacks of different ‘layers’ of land information as a methodology for capturing, storing, manipulating and displaying spatial information. Of course, the use of overlays in cartography has been around for centuries, with mappers presenting updates on tissue paper pasted onto base maps. McHarg, however, put the practice into a strict geographical context.

Geographers like Dr Waldo Tobler and Dr Duane Marble added the theoretical spatial statistical underpinnings to McHarg’s concepts. The result, spurred on in part from research by Dr Carl Steinitz and his colleagues at the in Harvard's Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis (LCGSA), is what we now call GIS.

Early GIS gave geographers the tools to record changes to the landscape and display them in a visual context. With advances in computational power, graphics and coding, GIS tools are now available to a wide range of professionals including surveyors, planners, local and regional governments and more. And with the latest tools for 3D rendering, real-time feedback loops and instant communications, GIS practitioners can now incorporate geodesign into every project.