Rural Design Pioneer Dewey Thorbeck on Connecting Urban and Rural Futures
Rural design isn’t a design style or set of building types. The author of three books on the discipline writes that rural design “is a methodology to help shape rural and urban landscapes before climate change and concerns for food, water, housing, and energy production become critical.”
By Dewey Thorbeck, FAIA | March 11, 2021
Dewey Thorbeck at Vermillion Highlands, near Rosemount. Photo by Farm Kid Studios.
FEATURE
The making of place, path, and shelter is rooted in the human spirit and is the basis for architecture. The spirit of a place exists in the feelings that people generate about it. Without people, there would be no architecture. A beautiful building can evoke an emotional response, but a beautiful building that is part of nature is poetic.
Growing up at the edge of the prairie in a small rural, northwestern Minnesota town, I always loved to sketch. After discovering the architectural profession and studying architecture at the University of Minnesota and Yale University, I won the Rome Prize in Architecture and headed to the American Academy in Rome.
During my time in Italy, I discovered rural hill towns like Montepulciano (Figure 1 below), which were so different from rural towns in the U.S. In Italy, rural residents lived together as a community on top of a hill; farmers would load up their donkeys and descend into the valleys to work every day. In the U.S., each small farm family is located alone on the outskirts of town; farmers travel into town to buy things and make connections. This discovery helped lead to my later founding of the Center for Rural Design at the University of Minnesota, to bring design to rural issues the same as urban design dealt with urban issues.
Figure 1: Montepulciano hill town in Italy
Making Connections
The world is changing rapidly. Climate patterns are becoming more severe and unpredictable due to global warming. Population growth is fueling major land use and economic issues, including food, water, energy, social, and housing insecurity. To address these problems, we must connect humans, animals, and environmental health through design for both urban and rural regions.
How can the world’s limited land and water resources be better organized and utilized to feed the growing world population, and how is the quality of life and the economies of people living and working in both rural and urban areas improved in the process? Rural design is a methodology to make connections between urban and rural futures at the urban/rural edge; in the process, it can help minimize the impacts of climate change while increasing economic resiliency, social interaction, and appreciation for diversity in art and culture—urban and rural.
Rural design is a methodology to make connections between urban and rural futures at the urban/rural edge; in the process, it can help minimize the impacts of climate change while increasing economic resiliency, social interaction, and appreciation for diversity in art and culture—urban and rural.
Rural design brings design thinking and the problem-solving process of design to environmental issues while making connections between urban and rural futures. Rural design is a way to understand the dynamic behavior of natural and human systems, and to unify and conceptualize the complex reality of sustainability in both rural and urban areas. It is a methodology to help shape rural and urban landscapes before climate change and concerns for food, water, housing, and energy production become critical (Figure 2 below).
Design thinking is something everyone uses in their daily life, and when architects become involved with a rural or urban community to help shape their future, it is critical that they explain the design process and engage with citizens in the evidence-based community design process so that the community selects the preferred design solution. Without community involvement, the proposed design solution will not represent community values and the selected design will not be sustainable.
Figure 2: Rural design as a connector for urban and rural futures
Trends and Opportunities
Urbanization has accelerated around the globe as people move from rural areas to urban areas for economic opportunities, creating urban development that sprawls into the countryside, eliminating much of the best farmland surrounding cities. Urban design has attempted to shape the development, but it has done so solely from an urban perspective. Areas of transition from rural to urban, and land uses at the urban/rural edge, require the lens of spatial arrangement from both urban and rural perspectives to shape, manage, and maintain the ecosystems that people depend upon.
Urban agriculture is currently gaining strong worldwide support to integrate agriculture into city landscapes. It has a long history emanating from the Garden Cities movement in the 19th century. Today, it has evolved into a new vision for the role of agriculture in urban contexts to enhance quality of life by retaining the land’s capability to contribute to sustainable societies and cultures.
Urban agriculture embraces the concept of one healthy planet that integrates, through design, human, animal, and environmental wellness; in doing so, it promotes understanding of the importance of connecting all life on Earth.
Design, as a problem-solving process, can influence how we shape future buildings and future urban and rural land uses. It is critical that architects become leaders and work with other design disciplines in using evidence-based community design to help communities shape land uses for today in a way that allows future generations the ability to shape theirs (Figure 3 below).
Figure 3: Rural design process
Design thinking and the problem-solving process of design is a strategic resource and source of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship to help communities find ways that limited land and water resources in urban and rural landscapes can be better shaped and utilized for the future. Rural design is a methodology for holistically crossing borders and connecting issues to nurture new design thinking and collaborative problem solving. It recognizes that human and natural systems are inextricably coupled and engaged in continuous cycles of mutual influence and response.
Rural design is a way to understand and create sustainable human habitation that reflects uniqueness of purpose, climate, and place. It is a process to shape the landscape to make connections and provide an integrated system of human communities, plants, and animals that meets the needs of people, the economy, and the environment in the present without compromising the future.
Architects can be leaders in using rural design to integrate knowledge across design disciplines and translate and apply university research knowledge to the design process, helping bridge the gap between science and society, while improving the social, economic, and environmental conditions of human communities on Earth—urban and rural.