Sun, wind, water, earth and life touch our living senses immediately, always, everywhere and without any intervention of reason. They simply are there in their unmatched variety, moving us, our moods, memories, imaginations, intentions and plans.
However, the designer transforming sun into light, air into space and water into life touches pure mathematics next to senses. Mathematicians pur sang destroy mathematics releasing it from senses, losing their unmatched beauty and relief, losing their sense for design. To restore that intimate relation, the most freeing part of our European cultural heritage my great examples are Feynman’s lectures on physics, D’Arcy Thompson’s ‘On Growth and Form’ and Minnaert’s ‘Natuurkunde van het vrije veld’ (‘Physics of outdoor space’). Minnaert elaborated the missing step from feeling to estimating.
I am sitting in the sun. How much energy do I receive, how much I send back into the universe?
I am walking in wind. How much pressure do I receive and how much power my muscles have to overcome? It is the same pressure giving form to the sand I walk on or giving form and movement to the birds above me! I am swimming in the oldest landscape of all ages, the sea. How can I survive?
No longer can I escape from reasoning, looking for a formula, a behaviour that works. But this reasoning is next to senses and once I found a formula I can leave the reasoning behind going back into senses and sense. The formula takes its own path in my Excel sheet as a living thing. It ‘behaves’. Look! Does it take the same path as the sun, predicting my shadow? Put a pencil and a ruler in the sun. Measure, compare, lose or win your competition with the real sun as Copernicus did.
Mathematics have no longer much to do with boring calculations. Nowadays computers do the work, we do the learning. They sharpen our reasoning and senses. We see larger contexts and smaller details then ever before discovering scale. Discovering telescopic and microscopic scale we find the multiple universe we live in, freeing us from boredom forever, producing images no human can invent. We do not believe our eyes and ears, we discover them. It challenges our imagination in strange worlds no holiday can equal. Life math is a survival journey with excitement and suspense.
But do we understand the sun? No, we design a sun (Kant) behaving like the sun we know from our position and scale of time and space we live in. We never know for sure whether it wil behave tomorrow in the same way as our sheet does. But we have made something that works here and now.
‘Yes! It works.’ That is designer’s joy.
Preliminary
contents
1 MOTIVATION 6
2 SUN 7
2.1 Light 8
2.2 Temperature 21
2.3 Plantation P.M. 37
2.4 Energy 38
3 WIND 53
3.1 Global Atmosphere 54
3.2 National Choice Of Location 60
3.3 Regional Choice Of Location 69
3.4 Local Measures 75
3.5 District And Neighbourhood Variants 87
3.6 Allotment Of Hectares 96
3.7 Sound And Noise 102
4 WATER 111
4.1 Water Balance 113
4.2 River Drainage 118
4.3 Water Reservoirs 134
4.4 Polders 143
4.5 Networks And Crossings 155
5 EARTH (Dutch, not yet translated) 164
5.1 Span Of Study 166
5.2 Kilometres: Geomorfologische Landschappen 167
5.3 Meters 186
5.4 Millimeters 203
5.5 Micrometers 210
5.6 Bodemverontreiniging
Drs. R. Moens 213
5.7 Bouwrijpmaken 232
5.8 Kabels En Leidingen
Drs. R. Moens 255
5.9 Map Analysis Drs. R. Moens 280
6 LIFE 284
6.1 Diversity, Scale And Dispersion 285
6.2 Ecologies 293
6.3 Legends By Scale 314
6.4 Natural History 332
6.5 Valuing Nature 348
6.6 Managing Nature 365
7 HUMAN LIVING 379
7.1 Adaptation And Accommodation 381
7.2 The History Of Dutch Habitat 408
7.3 Recent Figures (Dutch, not yet translated) 426
7.4 Form As State Of Dispersion (Dutch, not yet translated) 451
7.5 Densities (Dutch, not yet translated) 464
8 ENVIRONMENT (Dutch, not yet translated) 486
8.1 Definition 488
8.2 Milieuproblemen 490
8.3 Milieuhygiëne 493
8.4 Transmissie 500
8.5 Immisie En Blootstelling 504
8.6 Normering 508
8.7 Environmental Criteria For Evaluation 513
8.8 Milieuwinst En Milieuverlies Door Bouwen 520
8.9 Critical Remarks 533
9 PLANTING LEGENDS30M 537
9.1 Introduction 538
9.2 Planting And Habitat 554
9.3 Tree Planting And The Urban Space 563
9.4 Hedges 573
10 LEGENDS FOR DESIGN 577
10.1 Designed Variation 578
10.2 Composition Analysis 586
10.3 Legends For Design 595
10.4 The Scale Level At Which One Separates And Mixes 600
10.5 Boundaries Of Imagination 624
FACILITIES AND NUMBER OF INHABITANTS INVOLVED
(CBS 2002) 638
BUSINESS TYPES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
EXPRESSED IN METRES (VNG TABLE 1) 644
INSTALLATION TYPES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL
IMPACT EXPRESSED IN METRES (VNG TABLE 2) 657
KEY WORDS 659
QUESTIONS 676