Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: Although ecologists want to conduct research in urban systems, cultural constraints, spatial complexity, and institutional agendas limit the establishment of ecological experiments. Recent approaches using household landscaping have begun to tackle these obstacles; others, including adaptive management, restoration, reclamation, and wetland construction, reveal overlaps between ecological experiments and urban design. “Designed experiments” propose going beyond current strategies to partner with urban designers, landscape architects, and architects to insert architecturally designed experiments into the urban mosaic. The interdisciplinary approach of designed experiments exploits the aesthetics and functions of urban design, balancing ecological goals with important design factors such as context, public amenities, and safety. Designed experiments represent a novel way for ecologists to help improve urban environments by providing a means with which to work with urban designers in creating attractive, practical, and replicated experimental designs that generate quality ecological data from metropolitan sites.
DOI: 10.2307/3868611
Authors: Alexander J. Felson, Steward TA Pickett
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2137344999