The objective of this conference – to develop strategies to foster a healthy balance in the interdependent relationship of economic development, culture, and environmental protection in Yunnan Province is, of course, the primary consideration for sustainable design and development around the globe. It is a dominant issue in the region where I live and work and it is the overarching theme of our work at the Institute for Sustainable Design.

As a landscape architect and land planner, my work is focused on how these complex issues manifest on the landscape. Obviously, it is the landscape that provides the framework and connectivity in the interaction of culture, economic forces, and the natural environment. The land use plans that will be developed for this region, which will proscribe uses and relationships on the landscape, must become innovative design tools central to the effort to achieve a more sustaining future for the cities and towns of Yunnan Province.

Let us consider first the "cultural landscape" that holds the historical record of human interaction with the natural environment. Throughout history, the natural environmental processes and forces have directly shaped the cultural response evident in the built environments of small towns and villages.

Today, the cultural landscape provides the context that is essential to draw greater meaning from the artistic expression of the people. Thus, when we consider what are the cultural resources to be conserve, we must think beyond art and craft, artifact and even individual units of architecture to the broader man-made and natural landscapes where the region’s art and culture was developed and expressed.

Perhaps the ongoing survey of cultural resources of the province could be expanded to include elements of the cultural landscape, such as: the patterns of human settlement, the corridors of movement, and the spaces for civic activity; the patterns of agriculture and industry; the clustering of built form; the pavement patterns; the sacred landscapes; and, equally important, the subtle details the make us aware of the uniqueness of a place. A survey of important features of the region’s cultural landscape would be an important design tool to better inform planning and design decisions and to create meaningful land use relationships on the landscape.

However, I do not mean to suggest that new development in the cities and town should be mere aesthetic imitation of the region’s vernacular form. To achieve a more sustaining future, the design of new buildings and urban spaces must respond to the realities of our modern world.

In fact, environmental criteria to develop strategies for sustainable landscapes of the future must be global in scope. Design strategies must consider the demands of rapid population growth, the increasing rate of consumption of natural resources, and the limits on the earth’s energy supply. They must also consider the long-term consequences of world-wide industrialization, such as the greenhouse effect, the widening ozone hole, as well as immediate concerns such as the threat from acid rain.

However, globalization should not dictate architectural form! Conventional architectural design practices have too often produce steel and glass high-rise towers that look and function the same no matter where they may be sited on the globe. These generic boxes consume vast quantities of fuel for heat or cooling and require the construction of expensive infrastructure. They typically also require the added expense of imported building materials – which merely benefits a remote economy at the expense of the local one. Such a "global" architectural style, severed from a region’s indigenous material and natural energy flows, is mindless and it is unsustainable.

What should the landscape of the future look like? How do we design for a more sustaining future? Well, we must start by being humble. At the Institute for Sustainable Design we don’t claim to have any easy answers to the complex design issues of sustainability. However, we do have a set of three design principles that guide our work, which are based on nature’s own regenerative principles.

These "ecologically-effective" design principles have evolved and been refined through the design work of the architect and visionary designer William McDonough, founder and creative director of the Institute. They are highly relevant to the issues we are addressing today.

The first design principle is "Respect diversity." Design should respect diversity and should arise from the particulars of a place. We should strive to create "place-based" solutions that are mindful of the regional, cultural, and material uniqueness of a place, and not resort to universal solutions. In China, this would suggest that we respect the horizontality of traditional architecture and that we seek forms that are modern in expression but which harmonize and relate to nature as buildings have done here for centuries.

There has been much pride and concern expressed by the Yunnan Scholars for the region’s biological and cultural diversity. I urge you to apply the same degree of pride and concern for the diversity of you man-made built environment. Thus, rather than constructing a new urban landscape of endless skyscrapers that negate Chinese urban tradition, new urban concepts can look to the pattern of past, where verticality was reserved for important landmark buildings. This can help to give new communities a sense of place and meaning that is lost in modern cities devoid of any cultural connectivity.

Furthermore, while considering the eco-tourism value of the region, planners must remember that the gateway to the surrounding natural environment is through the cities and towns where visitors to this region will arrive. There is a great opportunity to begin the visitor’s experience here, in the urban areas, through conscious and respectful design of the built and spatial environment in ways that will relate the city to the region culturally and environmentally.

The second design principle for sustainability is to "eliminate the concept of waste." In nature’s industrial system, there is no waste. Biological nutrients are recycled through natural systems and continue to contribute to the health of an ecosystem. By contrast, human industry follows a one-way, linear "cradle-to-grave" manufacturing line in which things that have been created are eventually discarded – in landfills or lost as air and water pollution in the environment.

However, we too can design regenerative and restorative "cradle-to-cradle" systems that ensure that biological nutrients can return to the organic cycle. Equally important, we can also design systems so that products composed of materials that do not biodegrade – the "technical nutrients" – can continually circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles.

At the urban design scale, building materials and buildings themselves should be designed for perpetual life cycles. Flexibility and the opportunity for adaptive use should be inherent in the design of buildings.

The third design principle is "use solar power." Instead of designing in reliance on a limited supply of toxic, costly fossil fuels, new designs should tap the unlimited source of energy from the sun. Strategies such as passive heat capture, electricity from photovoltaic cells, natural ventilation, and interior daylighting to reduce the need for artificial light can effectively decrease the dependence on fossil fuels.

To achieve a more sustaining future for Yunnan - and for the planet – it is certain that we will need to be more creative and more innovative. At the Instiute we advocate what we call a "design and dialogue" approach to evoke effective community-based action. Dialogue – such as the one we are engaged in this week -- is an essential design tool. It is through meaningful dialogue that a design problem can be fully explored and that meaningful goals and objectives can be articulated. It is through dialogue that diverse stakeholders with diverse interests such as the "minority nationalities" represented across Yunnan – can come together to create a sustaining landscape that is economically viable and which respects and honors human and natural diversity.