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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 1
DESIGN EDUCATION ANDINNOVATION ECOTONES
ANN PENDLETON-JULLIAN, ARCHITECT
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2 EMANCIPATION
5 NOW AS THE DESIGN BRIEF
11 TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN
EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM
21 ACCREDITATION +
25 MICRO-LABS / SEEDING
A CULTURE OF INNOVATION
30 A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS
(CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE
40 INNOVATION ECOTONE AS A CONCEPT FOR
A SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION ECOLOGY
(IN EDUCATION AND ELSEWHERE)
42 EPILOGUE
46 Endnotes + Postscript
DESIGN EDUCATION ANDINNOVATION ECOTONESANN PENDLETON-JULLIAN, ARCHITECT
Director, Knowlton School of Architecture
Ohio State University
2009 Ann Pendleton-Jullian / Design: Soulellis Studio
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EMANCIPATION 2
The emancipation o both nature and the human imagination depends frst on the
capacity to unsay the world and, second, on the ability to image it dierently so
that wonder might be brought into appearance.James Corner 1
Estuarine intertidal zones are extraordinary landscapes and dynamic water-
land habitats. As ecological zones where two distinct ecosystems overlap or
grade into one another, they contain an abundance o diverse species and a
complex set o exchange dynamics. Scientists call these habitats ecotones.
Ecotones are typologically unique ecosystems connecting two distinctly
dierent plant and animal communities and the physical characteristics that
support those communities. 2
But these zones are more than just zones o transition. They are areas o
disturbance, catalyzed by the dierences in the two ecosystems, and they are
oten zones o conict as well. The words etymology derives rom a com-
bination o two Greek words: eco(logy) andtone, rom tonos or tension;
ecologies in tension. Ecotones are not merely the blending o two habitats and
their characteristics, but actually a third thing. Although ecotones share some
characteristics and species with the habitats on either side o them, ecotones
also have their own distinct characteristics and species.3
Landscape and environmental ecology theory, especially as it relates to spatial
confguration at the human scale is barely more than two decades old. Yet in
recognizing that humanity is now in charge o most o the land surace, and
responsible or it,4 landscape ecology theory explicitly links humanity with
the complex structure o our ecosystems, rom local sites to vast territories.
From the opposite end, rom the scale o the human, as science has re-scaled
its ocus rom the universe to the planet to the body. And as technologies
re-tool and shit rom operating on things that are external to living organisms
to operating on organisms themselves, to operating on the very matter o
organisms, we begin to enter truly original cultural terrain in which we grasp
EMANCIPATION
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EMANCIPATION 3
that we are not just aecting the environment at unprecedented scales and at
accelerating rates, but that we are actually part o the contiguous matter o
these larger material systems.5
Given this interconnectedness o humanity and the natural world, theories,
models, observations and experiments related to landscape and environmental
ecology are proving increasingly useul to our understanding o other kinds
o complex systems across diverse disciplines. This understanding allows us
to think about change and resiliency dynamics, and it allows us to imagine
constructing new models or change and resiliency.
As an architect and educator, I want to apply the concept o the ecotone to the
design o an ecosystem or architectural design education. But I want to do this
with the belie that it is also scaleable to other disciplines, institutional systems
and situations, either directly or as an analogy.
Much discussion in terms o accelerating capability-building in business,
sports, government, education, disciplinary entities, or subjects even, ocuses
on the value o activities that operate at the edge. In this discussion edge
can mean many dierent things, rom the edge o an enterprise, the edge o
methods and processes associated with the enterprise, geographic edges,
demographic edgesa whole set o edges that create the opportunity or
capability-building.6
The implication within all these discussions is that work at the edge is unet-
tered and unencumbered by the inertia o core activity. It is more open to
radically transormative and innovative orces and processes. T hese orces
and processes, i tapped into, can re-shape and transorm the core, something
that the core will not do under its own constraints and conditionsunder the
shear inertia o its own historical operations. In these discussions edge and
core are separate and unique felds o activitydiscrete in their operations
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EMANCIPATION 44
except or moments o catalytic communication.
I propose that within the dynamics o the twenty-frst century environment,modernist dialectical constructs are not as productive as they once were.
And simple polarized positions are not constructive. Instead o honouring
the paradigms o edge versus core, or, in our case, teaching versus research
learning about versus experimenting with, theinnovation ecotone
concept outlined in this paper proposes a third thinga concept o overlap,
transition or gradient. It proposes a sustainable educational environment: a
space o pervasive innovation which is talent rich and talent diverse.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 5
There is now considerable evidence in avor o the Intermediate Disturbance
Hypothesis; this new paradigm in ecology explicitly recognizes disturbance as an
integral part o natural systems. The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis positsthat the greatest biological diversity occurs at intermediate levels o disturbance.
A disturbance in this sense is defned as any relatively discrete event in time that
disrupts ecosystem or community structure and changes resource availability or
the physical environment. The extension o this hypothesis to the landscape level
results in the view that the greatest diversity occurs in landscapes large enough to
contain various serial or successional stages as the result o disturbance events in the
past. The resulting habitat heterogeneity will help maintain conditions suitable or
a greater number o species, including both opportunistic species that
invade newly created patches and highly competitive species that predominate in
older patches.H. R. Pulliam and B. R. Johnson7
Designers are, by nature, an opportunistic species.They work with and
on problems, fnding or creating openings rom which to make things. And
where there are no clear and present problems defned, they go out and fnd
them embedded in the intricacy o everyday lie. By problems, I do not merely
reer to things problematic but to opportunities or working on the questions,
puzzles, issues and enigmas that are inherent to human existence, its behavior,
and its structures. And in using the word designers, I am speaking inclusively
about those who design and those who engage in design thinking design as
a constructive process by which the designer takes on problems, models them,
rames them, and creates a response through the distribution o material, real
or virtual, in spaceand design thinking the same process but where the
product may be thought itselconceptual, strategic, structural, or systemic
in nature.
The beauty o design as an approach to lie, specifcally as lie is associated
with the material and human environments in which it is embedded, is its
creative opportunistic tendencies. The entrepreneurialism associated with
NOW AS THE DESIGN BRIEF
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'NOW' AS THE DESIGN BRIEF 6
these tendencies has always been a driving orce and one which has been
eective in negotiating change. But as the dynamics are now shiting in the
contemporary context, as the rate o change quickens and becomes morepervasive and persistent, this eectiveness is at risk.
In the past we had punctuated evolution. Things changed abruptly and ater
the abrupt change, there were decades o stability. Every major technical or
inrastructural shit asymptoted out moderately ast and then stayed airly stable
thereater. Automobiles, canals, railroads. It is the stability that has enabled us to
build really deep institutional models based upon these types o inrastructures and
technologies thereater. But maybe or the frst time ever in the history o civilization
we are entering a new techno-economic paradigm, a new type o inrastructure, a
digital inrastructure that may just not asymptote out. It may just keep on goingand going. It is exponential in very interesting ways Now o course inrastructure
is more than just technologies. All serious inrastructures are social-technical
paradigms and society and institutions have to fll in and respond.
John Seely Brown, Chicago, May 20088
We are living a moment o great change as opposed to a state o stability
in the sciences, technology, and culture. We are acing immense horizons
o new knowledgenew knowledge that is continuously inuencing this
rate o change while, simultaneously, being a result o the new technologies
and methods o inormation production and collation, and knowledge
construction associated with this change. And we are embedded in
environments o new practices that are both responsible or, and a product o,
our emerging global society.
How do we respond to this present environment and the cultural and societal
shocks that accompany it, such that these shocks produce evolution and not
trauma? What is the role o the designer and how can we train ourselves to be
better prepared or these current challenges as well as uture possibilities we
cannot oresee?
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'NOW' AS THE DESIGN BRIEF 7
As designers and architects, how well are we engaging with these horizons o
new knowledge and environments o new practices? As educators o creative
individuals, how best to help them engage with these increasingly immenseknowledge horizons and new practices? How best to cultivate motivations
through which they will navigate these new environments with purpose,
meaning, and intent?
Fiteen years, ago, my image o design was like navigating the course o a
sailboatdetermining the basic trajectory, fnding the north, setting sail
and tacking with the wind and currents to keep on course. In this image, the
winds and currents are analogous to the parameters o the problem, including
the questions, responses and discoveries made along the way. This analogy
allowed or unexpected deviations, whether minor, major or even whencompletely blown o course. Navigating the process, the richness o making
new discoveries, and arriving relatively undamaged were all dependent upon
the designers tactical openness while steadily moving through the process
with consistent intentions.
But today, the sailboat has been replaced with the image o a kayak in
white water moving through changing topologies. Designers now operate
in an environment in which major epistemological and cultural shits are
challenging territorialized ideologies and identities at an increasing pace;
and where accelerated change, complex problems, and signifcant scientifc
innovations are leading to the elasticity o our proessional and disciplinary
barriers, and our cultural and political practices.
We are no longer sailing along the surace o our environment, responding
with some sense o orientation, control, and critical oresight. Today, we are
deeply embedded in a ast moving and complex terrain, and must be able to
rely on our instincts as much as knowledgeinstincts honed rom knowledge
gained through experience that can be tacitly accessed. Disorientation is
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'NOW' AS THE DESIGN BRIEF 8
oten part o this environment and can be productive when it catalyzes highly
situated revisions in prevailing assumptions and practices, or generates deeply
creative insights.
The designer as white water kayaker requires highly developed disciplinary
expertise (musculature) and creative dexterity. The imagination is the
undercurrent or this creative dexterity, and it uels movement orward at a
steady pace and as bursts o adrenalin.
But I would suggest that there is something more that goes beyond skill and
dexterity that allows one to maintain a given course, goal, or points o ocus
while responding skillully and creatively to situations at hand. I would suggest
that it has to do with elasticityelasticity as the property o a substance
that enables it to change its volume or shape in direct response to a orce and
to recover its original orm upon the removal o the orce.
In her introduction to the catalogue or the MoMA/SEED magazine
exhibit, Design and the Elastic Mind, Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator o the
Department o Architecture and Design at MoMA, used the term elasticity in
a more resonant way.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'NOW' AS THE DESIGN BRIEF 9
Adaptability is an ancestral distinction o human intelligence, but todays distinct
variations in rhythm call or something stronger: elasticity. The by-product
o adaptability + acceleration, elasticity is the ability to negotiate change andinnovation without letting them interere excessively with ones own rhythms and
goals. It means being able to embrace progress , understanding how to make it
our own.
Paola Antonelli, New York, 20089
Elasticity as adaptability + acceleration is an inspired concept because it
implies shape deormation in response to external conditions without a
change in material composition. Over time the elastic object may deorm its
shape permanently as it repeatedly stretches and adapts, but the molecular
composition remains intact. I one makes the analogy between molecularcomposition and an individuals rhythms and goals (motivations), this implies
that a designer can negotiate extreme change by adapting to situations and
problems at hand, and adapt more quickly over time without losing his or
her individual point o view and inherent motivations. One can then extend
this metaphor to imagine that signifcant changes in a creative individuals
goals and motivations do occur as part o the natural process o evolution, but
at a dierent pacea pace that is associated with resistance. The key is the
concept o adaptability + acceleration, but with resistance.
This speciesthe designerinhabits an environment where expertise and
imagination interact to shape undercurrents o creativity. But expertise,
creative dexterity, imagination, and elasticity, without agency (the ability to
have an impact on the world) only suggest adaptability o the individual to this
uid and topologically complex environment. The capacity to adapt andact to
shape circumstances in this environment is critical. Elasticity o the individual
creates greater resilience or the entire species, as an ensemble o individuals,
but only when agency aects change in the ensembles network o rules,
norms, relationships, and practices.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'NOW' AS THE DESIGN BRIEF 10
So here we bring in the terminnovation. Innovation is a bi-product o
agency, expertise, creative dexterity, imagination, and elasticity. While
creativity is the use o imagination to transcend traditional ideas, processes,objects and so on, to make new ones o these, innovation is about giving these
things new meanings that lead to changes in the system. Because resilience
o the entire species depends upon innovation, in a time o perpetual change,
we need to understand that innovation is the key nutrient, as well as product,
o the ecosystem.
21stCENTURYKnowledgeConstruction
20thCENTURYLearning
ACCREDITATION
ACCREDITATION +
EXPERIMENTATION
DESIGN
MICRO-LABS
DIGITAL CORRIDORS
SPECIES-RICH
SPECIES-DIVERSE
Hedgehog
Fox
Mangrove
Mudskipper
An Opportunistic Species w/ Elasticity + Agency = Innovation
(for evolution, not trauma)
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 11
Given the dynamic and multivalent nature o current knowledge acquisition
in our evolving global society, it is very easy to become quickly dissatisfed
with the rigid binary oppositions put in place by the western cultural para-digm o modernity. In particular with regard to education, the systemic polar-
ization between teaching and research seems especially problematic. This split
is based on an historical bias that distinguishes teaching, as a system to deliver
rigorously vetted inormation, rom the practice o research as a methodical
investigation o a subject or topic to develop new knowledge.
The argument against the blending o teaching and research has revolved
around several key assumptions: that inormation delivered through teaching
unquestionably leads to the building o knowledge, and thereore authoritative
teaching is the most assured way to knowledge building; that the most efcientway to build knowledge rom inormation is through a disciplinary structure;
and fnally, that building knowledge systematically is a necessary prerequisite
to any new thought on a subject, implying a strictly linear sequence rom
teaching what is known to fnding new things.
I would like to suggest that the linear route is no longer eective in a time o
exponential increase in inormation. Today, massive amounts o inormation
can no longer be sorted into distinct disciplinary territories. Nor can they be
comprehensively learned or assimilated within the traditional educational
structure and time rame o degree-granting, even within one given feld.
So, i instead o polarizations, we think o continuums in which there is a
sliding proportional scale between the extremes, and where the extremes
themselves are tendencies and not absolute terms, then there is greater room
or adaptability to situations at hand and variability o means o engagement.
And i we break apart the traditional linear process, in which learning about
what is known preceeds new actions, and instead construct an idea space in
TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGNEDUCATION ECOSYSTEM
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 12
which how one acts in the world can be mapped relative to how one learns
about the world, and vice versa, then I believe we can envision a design concept
or a new kind o ecosystem o learning, engagement, and impact.
This idea space is scaolded by a double continuum in which the horizontal
continuum maps approaches to knowledge construction, and more specif-
cally, the paradigm shit that is occurring as we move rom twentieth-century
thinking to twenty-frst century thinking; and the vertical continuum maps
ways o engaging with the contemporary context, which I have suggested is
one in which we are aced with immense horizons o new knowledge and are
embedded in environments o new practices. The horizontal continuum is an
epistemological one and the vertical continuum is ontological in nature.
THE HORIZONTAL (EPISTEMOLOGICAL) DIMENSION
APPROACH-TO-EDUCATION
The let side o this continuum corresponds to models, methods, and
mechanisms associated with twentieth century learning and the right side cor-
21st
CENTURY
KNOWLEDGE
CONSTRUCTION
Scaleable learning
Elasticity
Agency
20th
CENTURY
LEARNING
Transmission of knowledge as pushfrom expert teacher to students
Disciplinary in nature w/neat rows ofinformation
Linearknowledge builds on facts
Student pulls knowledge throughentrepreneurial engagement withlearning environments
Breaks down disciplinary boundaries
Non-hierarchical learningwhat youneed when you need it
FIGURE 1The Horizontal Dimension/Approach-to-Education
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responds to how we are beginning to conceive o knowledge construction or
the twenty-frst century. A twentieth-century approach to education holds ast
to the notion o teaching as a systematic delivery o knowledgeknowledgethat is vetted and sanctioned and delivered in discipline-based packages rom
expert teachers to students. It is education in which one learns about specifc
stu and how to do specifc things.
In contrast, twenty-frst century learning environments are about learning
that extends ar beyond the classroom (it scales), which in turn promotes
elasticity and agency. The assumption is that we need to prepare or utures
in which the specifc things we will be doing, and specifc stu we will need
to know, do not yet exist. Implicated in an education or the twenty-frst
century are all sorts o new mechanismscultural, social, and intellectualmechanismsthat are either directly or indirectly afliated with the digital
age as a global phenomenon.
Intuitively, we understand that a twenty-frst century approach to learning
is radically dierent rom education that ocuses on the accumulation o
inormation and the simplistic transer o culture and ideas associated with
this inormation. But what is it more precisely?
I would suggest that it begins with an epistemological shit in which learning
how to learn and act (learning to be), in a highly situated manner, replaces
learning about 10 something. And then it is about how this scales, so as to
create elasticity and agency.
Scaleable learning is learning that extends beyond the duration o a particular
instance o learninga class, a course, or an extended sequence o courses
evenand beyond the defned content and knowledge boundaries o that
particular instance. It is learning that may be locally situated, and regionally con-
structed, but is ultimately globally oriented, ocusing on the relationship between
the regional and the global in how one constructs and applies knowledge.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 14
Scaleable learning is not discrete learning, but learning that connects with
other knowledge bases, and osters easy adaptability and application to mul-
tiple instances, multiple scenarios, and multiple applications. It is the inverseo instructional teaching environments, promoting and in act requiring
students to actively and entrepreneurially engage in their own education. It is
authentic learning, highly situated but extensively connected.
This is a second paradigm shit in how we think about knowledge, action,
interaction, and agency. It is about learning to manage a complex network o
inormational resources and skills so as to develop the capacity to assimilate
them, internalize them and then access them under a variety o situations
changing, adapting and innovating in dierent situations and circumstances.
Project-based environments like the design studio are an excellent example
o scaleable learning because in order to engage the problem, the students
must frst decipher it and then determine what they will need to work through
the problemwhat skills and inormation they will need to move orward,
including elements outside the specifc domain where the work began. And
then they engage in work that, as it progresses, continually reorms the prob-
lem, its constraints, and inormation + skills needed. Inormation-rich courses
can also operate in this entrepreneurial manner and there are many well-
proven examples,11 as well as more experimental ones still under development.
So i twenty-frst century learning is about scaleable learning to create elastic-
ity and agency, how do we understand elasticity in this context? And agency?
Elasticity was defned earlier as adaptability and acceleration but we can
elaborate here. Adaptability and acceleration imply exibility and speed, both
associated with agility and dexterity. Dexterity and agility require tremendous
skill that may be part o ones natural talent. More oten, however, and even
with inherent talent, this skill is developed through tremendous amounts o
concerted work that is done to build strength in multiple areas. Design dexter-
ity and agility also require that knowledge and skills not only be extensive but
that they are assimilated so thoroughly that they become internalized as tacit
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 15
knowledge that is accessed instinctually as needed.
Agency is the ability to have an impact on the world, and is the product oscaleable learning and elasticity. Architecture has always been a visionary dis-
cipline and a visionary practice. Between vision and its achievement is agency.
The development o agency is dependent on many things, including, most
importantly, the ability to deeply read the context and the systems o values
embedded in itthe ramesto ormulate actions that support or mediate
change, or operate on that context.
I agency can be defned as instrumental actionsthat is, actions that shape
their environment as opposed to being merely shaped by itthen the the un-
damentals o agency are a deep understanding o that environment, a vision,and being able to make that vision operational through elasticity o response.
It must be emphasized that the horizontal axis is a continuum, not a time line,
and the two ends are not mutually exclusive. There will be educators deep in
the uture still teaching with twentieth-century principles and there are many
instances o teaching in the last century that attempted sel-sustaining learn-
ing practices and project-based environments.
THE VERTICAL (ONTOLOGICAL) DIMENSION / ENGAGEMENT
OF THE CONTEXT
This dimension maps ways o engaging the contemporary context: a context
in which we are aced with immense horizons o new knowledge and embed-
ded in environments o new practices. The top o this continuum has been
labelled accreditation. It is accreditation that defnes the role and content
o proessional architectural education today. Thereore, accreditation at the
top can be taken to mean, literally, that the dynamic and complex context is
engaged and acted on through the consistency o proessional standards and
practices or accreditation as architects. Experience is assimilated through
these flters, new knowledge is constructed in direct relationship to existing
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 16
knowledge, and new practices are studied and understood relative to existing
and historical practices.
But the term accreditation can also more broadly represent the imperative o
any core disciplinary teaching or core body o knowledge, and the standards
and practices associated with that knowledge. This is to say that the context is
made sense o through these core knowledge flters and historical practices. Or,
analogically, it can also mean any epistemological systemor any outlook, act,
or belie or that matterthat is accessed and employed to help organize and act
on the context we are in. Accreditation, as a term broadly interpreted, is about
sanctioned authority. It thereore implies that the context, as dynamic as it might
be, is engaged through accepted categories o knowledge and perspectives (value
rames), that existing knowledge and practices are reliable, and that they holdauthority over emerging questions and unknown uture conditions.
21st
CENTURYKnowledge
Construction
Scaleable learning
Elasticity
Agency
20th
CENTURYLearning
ACCREDITATION
(responses)
EXPERIMENTATION
(questions)
FIGURE 2The Vertical Dimension.Engagement of Context
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 17
At the oot o this continuum is experimentation as an imperative and a prac-
tice. Here, the context is engaged through creative research, and a conscious
way o working that prioritizes questions over authoritative responses. Thiscan be seen as an ontological distinction: while accreditation is about I exist,
and act, through how I defne mysel, experimentation is about acting and exist-
ing through questions.
Experimentation is explicitly about the raming o questions through which
we learn about the things we are experimenting with and on. Experimentation
also implies that it is not merely a process o providing questions and answers,
but a recursive process o repeated questioning in which partial , possible, or
probable answers are tested and then subjected to new questions with new
responses leading to new propositions, more questions, and so on. Becauseexperimentation is recursive and because it is ongoing (ueled by curiosity),
this process o knowledge building has the potential to keep pace with its
environment while simultaneously aecting this environment.
Experimentation is the conducting o specifc pieces o work (acts or opera-
tions) or the purposes o discovering something unknown, or or testing an
idea, a principle, a proposition. It is the means through which creativity is
linked to innovation. Innovation requires deeply contextualized knowledge;
knowledge that comes rom engagement o the context, not beore engage-
ment o the context. Knowledge that leads to innovation is built rom working
deeply situated in the context to know it (the kayak again), rather than applied
over the context to make sense o it (the sailboat).
Because I understand accreditation, and all that it implies and makes analogy
to as an overlay o knowledge and practices onto the context, and experi-
mentation as a way o operating through an underlayment o questions that
generate new knowledge and practices, I have placed experimentation below
the learning continuum and accreditation above it.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 18
(THE TEST: HEDGEHOGS AND FOXES)
As a testing o the creative ecology o this idea space, it could be useul to sub-ject an existing creativity paradigm to this space in order to better understand
the relational nature o its two dimensions.
In 1953 Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote the essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, in which
he proposed a classifcation o writers and thinkers, and perhaps all human
beings, into two opposing psychological orientations and personalities. His
classifcation is based upon a line rom the Greek poet Archilochus, which says
The ox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
Taken fguratively, the words mark a great chasm between those, on one side,who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or
articulate, in terms o which they understand, think and eela single, universal,
organizing principleand, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, oten
unrelated and even contradictory related by no moral or aesthetic
principle; these last lead lives, perorm acts, and entertain ideas that are centriugal
rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or diused, moving among many
levels, seizing upon the essence o a vast variety o experiences and objects The
frst kind o intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second
to the oxes.12
Although Berlin himsel agreed that over-simple classifcations o this type cre-
ate dichotomies that, i pressed, are artifcial, scholastic, and ultimately absurd,
he still elt that all distinctions which embody any degree o truth, oer a point
o view rom which to look and compare, a starting point or genuine investiga-
tion. Certainly enough people have cited this metaphoric dichotomy to contrast
artists, thinkers, architects, business models, political fgures, and others.
Taking his cue rom Berlin, the well-known modern architectural historian
and theoretician Colin Rowe, in Collage City, applies the hedgehog/ox model
as well. He uses it to discuss the dierent motivations attributable to Louis
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 19
XIV at Versailles and Hadrian at Villa Adriana.
Versailles is certainly an exhibition o total architecture and design the tri-umph o generality, the prevalence o the overwhelming idea and the reusal o
the exception, the complete unitary model, while Villa Adriana attempts
to dissimulate all reerence to any controlling idea. Compared with the
single-minded perormance o Louis XIV, we have the curiosity o Hadrian
who proposes the reverse o any totality in the Villa Adriana an uncoordi-
nated amalgam o discrete enthusiasms. So to paraphrase loosely in hopes
o expediting this characterization, we have exhibition o the overwhelming
idea on the part o the hedgehog personality in contrast to the curiosity and
discrete enthusiasms o the ox personality. The ox is preoccupied with a
multiplicity o stimuli while the hedgehog is concerned with the primacy othe single idea.13
Looking again at the vertical dimension o the idea space I have delineated, i
one takes the broader understanding o the word accreditation as meaning
authoritative knowledge and practices (or even analogically as a core episte-
mological system seen as a complete and unitary system), and experimenta-
tion to mean a practice o curiosity o discrete enthusiasms, then one can
clearly see how the hedgehog maps into the top-let-hand space and the ox
into the lower-let-hand space. Because the hedgehog organizes his under-
standing o reality through a clear single a priori idea, holding steadast to this
image o reality regardless o the changes in the context, it is clear that reality
is understood through the authoritative. The ox, on the other hand, is open
to changes in the environment, adapting with it. The implication in Berlins
text is that the ox is not merely scattered in thinking and ormation because o
an incapacity to be otherwise, but that oxes seize upon the essence o a vast
variety o experiences. They modiy their behaviourthey adaptand pos-
sess a situated understanding o reality. Given this, I would actually place oxes
closer to the right o this lower realm, just as I would place hedgehogs closer to
the top let o their quadrant.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES TOWARD THE DESIGN OF A DESIGN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM 20
But both o these species are still very much part o the pre-twenty-frst
century contexta polarization that is problematic in the shiting, altering,
dynamic context o the twenty-frst century. I we want to think about the
aect a twenty-frst learning paradigm might have on this context, and more
particularly how to design an ecosystem that would occupy the other two
quadrants, what would it take? And what species would we fnd evolving there?
21st
CENTURY
Knowledge
Construction
20th
CENTURY
Learning
ACCREDITATION
ACCREDITATION +
EXPERIMENTATION
DESIGN
MICRO-LABS
DIGITAL CORRIDORS
SPECIES-RICH
SPECIES-DIVERSE
Hedgehog
Fox
Mangrove
Mudskipper21st
CENTURY
Knowledge
Construction
20th
CENTURY
Learning
ACCREDITATION
EXPERIMENTATION
Hedgehog
Fox
FIGURE 3The Test
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 21
The amount o inormation available today, the pace at which it is coming in,
and thereore the amount an architect is expectedrequiredto master is
exponentially increasing. The ormal academic phase o becoming an architectis one component o the education. The proessional internship, during which
the student is actively practicing, under the guidance o proessionally licensed
architects, on real ull-scale projects, is another. Despite this greater amount o
inormation and the manner in which it keeps adding to, and rereshing itsel,
the length and time available within the academic portion o an architects
education is not increasing. In act, in some cases it is decreasing.
As a result, certain bodies o inormation are being replaced by new bodies
o inormation, not because they are outdated or irrelevant, but because there
is just not enough time or all to be consumed under the traditional learningmodels.
For example, looking at technical coursework alone: Ten years ago, course-
work on structures was about statics o materials; today, in addition to this, we
have new materials, new methods o construction, and an entire new feld that
relates structures, materials, and perormance to environmental concerns and
sustainable responses. And this multiplication o inormation and concerns
sub-felds evenprolierates throughout the coursework rom structures, to
history and theory, representational methods, building systems, and design
methodologies, even.
Furthermore, this gap between the amount o consumable inormation
and skills that can be learned under traditional teaching models, and the
inormation and skills available and critical to an architect today, can produce
unintended shits in values and ocus as the immediacies o new concerns and
inormation create competition within the system. In an eort to answer the
really tough questions really quickly, with ever-new inormation and practices,
we stand to lose the human social and reective dimensions o our work and
our identitieso who we are and what we do, as individuals and together. In
that which is most immediate being attended to frst, the more tacit aspects o
ACCREDITATION +
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'ACCREDITATION +' 22
our social, cultural and political practices oten stand to be neglected. Without
a critical assessment o these possible and unintended shits in values, the
discipline is vulnerable to racture and loss o purpose.
In addition to this increased amount and pace o new inormation acquisition,
we have the development o new sub-disciplines. One example is computation
as a tool or design, simulation, research, and construction methods, and as a
feld with its own theoretical ground. Environmental systems and processes
is another. And as deep areas o expertise are developing within these sub-
disciplines, sub-sub-disciplines are emerging. The risk o losing the disciplines
integrative imperative is severe without new mechanisms and networks o
connective tissue.
All o this implies that the designer must master core knowledge and skills in
a dierent way: one that is about greater assimilation, in a more compressed
manner, o an ever broader range o knowledge. Engagement with immense
horizons o new knowledge and new practices, in the disciplinary context
described above, requires re-envisioning the core o design education.
Mechanisms, means, and methods associated with a twenty-frst century
approach to learning promote entrepreneurial learning. In an environment
in which knowledge and skills are built and acquired in situated contexts that
promote scaleability, elasticity, and agency, there is greater possibility that
the student will acquire, assimilate, and synthesize valuable skills and more
inormation associated with new practices.
Thereore, I propose that as one moves increasingly toward an operational
twenty-frst century architectural education, accreditation (which I now use to
reer to the system o core principles, knowledge, and practices that specifcal-
ly correspond to the proessional certifcation given to schools o architecture)
incrementally and signifcantly improves and becomes hyper accreditation.
That is, it becomes accreditation + (plus) and it can be drawn like this:
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'ACCREDITATION +' 23
The curve is not an even gradient because the moment one makes the shit in
thinking rom delivering knowledge through teaching, to providing mecha-
nisms that cultivate entrepreneurial and scaleable learningthe incremental
increase in aect is signifcant.
But this broader range o knowledge and skills is o little value on its own
terms. For it to be deployed in a manner that meaningully responds to the
complex issues o today, learning must advance beyond inormation and skills.
It must ultimately lead to the development o a creative inquiring disposition.
The designer must be able to understand a specifc situation or problem,
unpack it, and then determine and go ater the specifc deeper or fner-grained
inormation and skills necessary to move orward.
21st
CENTURY
Knowledge
Construction
20th
CENTURY
Learning
ACCREDITATION
ACCREDITATION +
EXPERIMENTATION
FIGURE 4 Accreditation + Curve
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 'ACCREDITATION +' 24
Learning in this environment o hyper accreditation is about three things. It
involves sorting inormation and skills into those that you have to have on
hand, to have mastered, so that they are part o any tacit synthetic response,rom those that are best let in the bank o stu to be accessed as necessary in
a given situation. It is also about developing an entrepreneurial disposition
one that is ueled by inquiry and maniest through the creative imagination.
Finally, mechanisms o communication and connectivity are essential to create
a rich integrative environment o deep and broad work.
Accreditation + is not so much about more knowledge, more skills, as it is
about key knowledge and skills, well assimilated and well linked across the
sub-disciplinesdesign, technology, history and theory, representation, com-
putationas well as the capacity to fnd and build the knowledge and skillsnecessary or any given situation. T his requires the development o new learn-
ing mechanisms; injected into the system, these new mechanisms can instigate
transormative change in the system itsel. There are already mechanisms that
have been in place or many years in key places, such as MITs Open Course
Work platorm, Rices Connexions Project, and other more experimental
projects and sites such as USCs Vectors Journal or Culture and Technology
or the NASA-sponsored Virtual Telescopes in Education (there are vitual
microscopes too), simulation devices, etc. Many o these mechanisms, but not
all, are acilitated by digital technology and the Internet.
Within a school o architecture and design there are, even traditionally, sub-
stantially dierent modes o engaging with course content throughout the
education process. But new technologies, new theories related to inormation
collation and visualization, lead us to think about possible new models or
specifcally working toward accreditation +.14 And accreditation +, as a
concept, challenges us to design these.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 25
As we navigate toward a twenty-frst century approach to learning that
honors elasticity and agency, and engages the context through inquiry and
experimentation, we gain a greater chance o authentic innovation. Greaterdesign elasticity, ounded upon better assimilated skills and knowledge, cre-
ates the dexterity and agency that are needed or design that is more than just
instrumental or critical problem solving. This is design in which constraints
are reramed as opportunities. Increased knowledge and skill assimilation
increased dexteritymeans an increased capacity to oer design responses
to these opportunities. And increased agency means that these design
responses can alter existing understandings, practices, and boundaries.
This shit in emphasis in architectural education rom learning how to make
things in response to a problems constraints and opportunities, to learning asa orm o experimentation where questions are ramed aroundproblems (mov-
ing rom the upper quadrant to the lower one) activates design as a form
of inquiry. Here, opportunism is not a perceptual shit applied to a given
problem (valuable as that might be in opening up unexpected trajectories o
work). It is not an aikido move that turns constraints into opportunities. It is
problem-seeking itsel.
Questions ramed around problems become much more important than
intentional responses with intended consequences. Intelligent, well-ramed
questions are the essence o meaningul, creative design inquirydesign
as researchbecause they instigate an abundance o work testing dierent
approaches, priorities, and possibilities through multiple responses. And
great questions, intricately ramed around problems that are even mildly
complex in nature, have a tendency to trespass across disciplinary boundaries,
leading naturally to work that co-opts material and methods rom
other disciplines.
MICRO-LABS / SEEDING A CULTUREOF INNOVATION
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES MICRO-LABS / SEEDING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION 26
An approach to design that ocuses on experimentation, inquiry and ongoing
creative research, multidisciplinary / multitalented in scope, around intricate
questions, creates a culture o innovation. A culture of innovation alsoimplies distribution o innovative practices throughout a particular environ-
ment. Culture, as the shared belies, customs, practices, and social behavior
o a group andculture as the growth o biological material in a nutrient-rich
medium, both rely on distribution as opposed to concentration o activity.
This culture o innovation can emerge as individuals embrace new knowledge
and practices as active participants in their work. Or it can be catalyzed
through mechanisms that encourage individualsand specifcally individuals
rom dierent areasto do design work together. Catalytic mechanisms can
be heavy or light: large-scale multidisciplinary centers with major unding, lotso people, and clear planning, or they can be something else.
Given the ast pace o the world today, I suggest that creativity and experi-
mentation must be quicker and more agile than traditional, heavy innovation
mechanisms allow. A lighter, more agile mechanism is called or; one that is
capable o elasticitymaybe even conceived as elastic. As an alternative, I
propose design labs, where the organizational structure is light, emergent,
networked, and elastic, are dierent rom design studios in that they are driven
by inquiry rather than organized around pedagogy.
I would suggest that a culture o innovation looks very dierent rom a
traditional research unding model. As a culture, it cannot be mandated or
structured, but it can be acilitated. These design labs, instead o compre-
hensive large units, could be richly networked design micro-labs. Easier and
quicker than large centers to plan, build and reconfgure as projects shit and
move in other directions, they acilitate grassroots creative research. These
highly networked micro labs, ocused on topics o deep inquiry, need not have
dozens o participants sitting in the same room. A team o participants with
the necessary skills might be distributed among several institutions, several
countries, networked digitally and through ongoing academic relationships.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES MICRO-LABS / SEEDING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION 27
The creative research can then move beyond the home discipline, the home
academic institution, and beyond academia itsel, while being built on these
home resources, strengths, and talents.15
Like a pace line16or echelono cyclists, these design micro-labs, in
concept, consist o a small, agile team o diverse talent and expertise, non-
hierarchically organized, drating rom each others strengths. An example is
a our-person team o track cyclists. The ront cyclist leads the eort until it is
his turn to drop back and drat at the rear, to rest, recuperate, and regenerate.
The two cyclists in the middle drat and pull simultaneously, and the person in
the rear waits and prepares to move orward.
My daughter is one o these cyclists and she explained the dynamics o eortto me. There is generally a movement cycle o twenty seconds to several
minutes until a specifc event occurs, such as a hill. In preparation or the hill,
the team positions the member who is most eective at pulling up hills into
the lead position where this cyclist will build uphill momentum and hold until
the hill is attainedar at least long enough to break the inertia o the eort
on at ground. On a straightaway, where speed must be built, the team rotates
continually with no more than a two-pedal-stroke hold in the ront position.
In the micro-lab, the various strengths and areas o expertise would pull, drat,
and rest at dierent moments during a project, depending on dierent needs
and events. While drating, one has the chance to learn new material, research
new inormation and re-direct a portion o the research/work in preparation
or leading again.
Returning to our idea space, i we understand that these design micro-labs are
part o an ethos o experimentation and can only be achieved within twenty-
frst century teaching/learning methods, I suggest that the conceptual curve o
the design micro-labs looks something like this:
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES MICRO-LABS / SEEDING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION 28
Just as the accreditation + curve starts with talent and lie experiences, build-
ing knowledge and skills in a structured setting, the design micro-lab curve
also begins with talent and lie experiences. It relies on knowledge and skills
built within the accreditation + activity zone, but these new skills and this
new knowledge become more tacit, supporting instinct and intuition around
projects. What is important is that the design micro-labs seed a culture o
innovation as elastic mechanisms. They are mechanisms not structures, and as
mechanisms they are a means o creative grassroots research and innovation.
Because they are networked, a single micro-labs reach extends beyond the
team itsel or the duration o a specifc project. When the opportunity arises,
these micro-labs can coalesce into one larger lab with tremendous diversity
and richness o talent. Breaking apart again, they may redistribute talent and
21st
CENTURY
Knowledge
Construction
20th
CENTURY
Learning
ACCREDITATION
ACCREDITATION +
EXPERIMENTATION
DESIGN
MICRO-LABS
DIGITAL CORRIDORS
SPECIES-RICH
SPECIES-DIVERSE
Hedgehog
Fox
Mangrove
Mudskipper21st
CENTURY
Knowledge
Construction
20th
CENTURY
Learning
ACCREDITATION
ACCREDITATION +
EXPERIMENTATION
DESIGN
MICRO-LABS
FIGURE 5The Micro-lab Curve
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES MICRO-LABS / SEEDING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION 29
resources. Analogous to the way process networks mobilize highly special-
ized small companies across an extended integrated design and manuacturing
process,17
a network o micro-labs creates a horizontal rhizomic structure inwhich the whole is much greater than the sum o the parts. The networked
micro-lab can adapt to new questions and opportunities rom outside as well
as inside the network.
It is important that both the emergence oindividual grass roots eorts and the
seeding orgrass roots activity are o value to this model. Easy to support, quick
to build, networked together, they are capable o creating an impact ar beyond
what a single larger lab could.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 30
As has been previously stated, much o the discussion about building business
capability ocuses on the value o activities that operate at the edge, where edge
can mean several thingsthe edge o an enterprise, the edge o the processesassociated with the enterprise, geographic edges, demographic edges, etc.a
whole set o edges that create the opportunity or capability building. (JH)
The point is that by being able to listen deeply and participate on the edge, you
can pick up things beore anybody else picks them up, and you can use them to
accelerate you own capability building My sense is that there are more edges
today, and the edges themselves are becoming more important. (JSB)18
The implication is that work at the edge is unettered and unencumbered by the
inertia o core activity. It is more open to innovative orces that can reshape and
transorm the core, which the core will not do under its own constraints andconditions.
The design micro-lab curve is analogous to edge activity, while the accredita-
tion + curve relates to core activity. While some people are most valuable
working within the accreditation + environment, others bring value working
in the micro-labs-as-seeds-o-innovation environment.
As the design micro-labs become more and more deeply engaged with exper-
imentationas their members and methods become more and more elastic
with increasing dexterity and agencythe distance between the accreditation
+ and the micro-lab activities diverges. This diverging propensity and a contin-
ued disinterest on my part in the value o polarizing classifcations, means that
instead o ocusing on these as separate and unique felds o activity, discrete in
their operations except or moments o productive communication (irritation),
I preer instead to ocus on the opportunities or connection oered by the
space in between.
This space is not a void between two kinds o activity, but a space o pursuit
itsel. Work within this space would be dierent rom ongoing work pursued at
the edge, dierent rom work associated with hyper disciplinary learning, and
A CULTURE OF INNOVATIONAS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 31
dierent rom the experimental project-based work o the micro-labs.
Connectivity would begin as events in sequencecorridorscapable otranserring both inormation and methodologies between the two ongoing
activities. These corridors can be maniest as many things: symposia, micro-
symposia, seminars, short topic-oriented design workshops, inormal research
presentations, or any mechanisms that move the work o the design labs out
into the space. The corridors would be supported by inormal social networks
as well, developed digitally (Facebook, Twitter, et al) and physically (caes, game
rooms, etc.). Students or participants within the accreditation + activity can
be conscripted to work in the micro-labs just as non-local participants in the
design labs might be poached or work within the accreditation + activity.
The crucial point is that this in-between space o pursuit and the corridors
o connectivity create a condition that disrupts the traditional operational
understanding o the edge-vs-core relationship. This environment depends on
both and thereore honors both. To break the non-productive resistance o the
historically sanctioned core/accreditation activity, this edge environment must
be prepared with internal mechanisms o connectivityintellectual, social, and
digitalprovide that preparation. (See endnote 19 or how digital tools/means/
mechanisms operate to sustain the ecotone)19
But beyond connectivity, corridors also have the capacity to create other spin-
o activity that distributes itsel entropically, seeding the space in between to
create a ully distributed culture o creativity and innovation.
In landscape systems, corridors create connectivity between dierent habitats.
A system o corridors can lace together two distinct ecosystems, or two pur-
suits such that the impact o one on the other is not purely incidental. Chan-
nelled movements o matter that are spatially dierentiated rom an adjacent
static area may produce or maintain an observable corridor. Here, movement
o objects is greater within a strip than in the surroundings.20
FIGURE 6 Corridors + Distribution
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 32
Corridors in the landscape are strips that dier rom their surroundings;
(and they) permeate the land.21 They are movement paths or species, or wa-
ter, or windor material o the landscape. They exist as qualitatively dierentzones o conduit that connect two ecosystems, end to end. But in addition to
connectivity, they also provide distribution as they open up their contiguous
surroundings to the stu that is moving within them, whether species, air,
inormation, or creative practices.
The space between the two curves is intended as an inhabited space, and I
suggest that its inhabitation has an eect on the activity curves that were
originally drawn. As the two curves diverge, the increasing distance across
the space calls or longer connective corridors; more numerous, more diverse
activities, and completely new mechanisms are necessary to exploit the value
o the most experimental o the micro-labs. These longer corridors seed more
spin-o activities and engage more people. The capacity or experimental work
21st
CENTURY
Knowledge
Construction
20th
CENTURY
Learning
ACCREDITATION
ACCREDITATION +
EXPERIMENTATION
DESIGN
MICRO-LABS
DIGITAL CORRIDORS
SPECIES-RICH
SPECIES-DIVERSE
FIGURE 7Digital Corridors + TheInnovation Ecotone
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 33
is increasingly amplifed and what was a straight arithmetic proportion now
becomes a curve transormed by the rapidly expanding area o the ecotone.
Because people and creative work are involved and because curiosity is a
driver, the more people involved, the more work achieved. I this work and
these people are well connected through involvement in dynamic mechanisms
o communication, and are intellectually generous, then the growth, volume,
and impact o this space increases. The density, diversity, and richness o the
work increases.
While I suggest that many o the proessors and researchers would choose to
work in one o the two edge regionsthe hyper-accreditation or the micro-
labssome cross the space to work in both. But the principle inhabitants othe ecotonal space in between will be the students. They will be raised in that
space, migrating rom one edge to another as they choose their own courses o
learning and discover their own strengths, talents, and motivations.
Several categories or types o (ecotone) species are useully recognized, indepen-
dent o taxonometric group. Most species are generalists that tolerate requent
disturbance, as well as the contrasting environmental conditions on opposite sides o
the (ecotone)
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 34
In addition to edge residents, (ecotones) oten contain multihabitat species, those
requiring or requently using two or more habitat types. These organisms capitalize
on the complementarity o resources provided by the zone between two ecosystemsor land uses. Though subject to disturbance regimes o both ecosystems, these loca-
tions oer ready access to diverse resources, plus stability during stress periods.22
But, even more importantly:
(Ecotones) are oten biological cornucopias. High species richness and density, or
biomass, are documented or many groups Edges may also play an important role
inspecies evolution.24
Within the deep interior o the Cameroon rain orest there is an abundance o
bird species inhabiting the dense canopy. One o these is a green robin-sized
bird known as the greenbul. Drab and unremarkable in appearance, this
bird is extremely interesting to the biologists at UCLAs Center or Tropical
AQUATIC
SPECIES
UNIQUELY RIPARIAN
SPECIES
DECIDUOUS CONIFEROUS
FOREST SPECIES
Aquatic
ecosystem
or
accreditation +
ecosystem
Riparian
ecotone
or
innovation
ecotone
Upland mixed forest
ecosystem
or
micro-lab
ecosystem
FIGURE 8Species distribution for ariparian ecotone (or an innovationecotone)23
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 35
Research and Leiden University in the Netherlands because its existence and
characteristics run counter to the traditional argument that species generation
and modifcation occur within distinct geographically isolated ecosystems.25
This bird can be ound both within the deep rain orest and the wooded ringe
(the ecotone) where jungle meets savannah. Although there is no geographic
barrier between the two populations, the greenbuls living on the orest edge
are distinctly dierent rom those living in the interior o the orest. In act,
the morphological dierences between the two are more pronounced than
those ound between separate bird species living within the same habitat.
The greenbul is a highly vocal bird species. One o the most signifcant dis-
coveries o the UCLA/Leiden group was that the greenbuls living within the
orest edge have a distinctly dierent song pitch rom those that live within theorest. This change in pitch allows those greenbuls living on the edge to over-
come the distinctly dierent ambient sounds o the savannah, thus inuencing
mating choices and ensuring reproductive success.
Additionally, the greenbuls living in the gradient zone between orest and
savannah have longer wings, deeper bills and are heavier than the rainorest
dwellers. These characteristics coner competitive advantage in an environ-
ment where this small bird is more vulnerable to aerial predators. Rainorest
edges are inherently environments o increased predatorship due to the
greater density o small herbivore species. These species orage on certain
plants that can only be ound on the edges because the boundary soils tend
to be mineral rich and because greater penetration o sun and wind opens up
the orest oor to growth. The abundance o small herbivore species attracts
predators turning it into an ecological trap or species such as the greenbul.
It is the greenbuls ability to adapt its song to acoustical variation and its aero-
nautic capabilites in response to increased vulnerability within the gradient
zone o the rainorest edge that ensures its survival. The biologists studying
the greenbul believe that they are witnessing something very important.
Together with other species that have been discovered and studied within this
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 36
particular ecosystem, but also across the globe, the greenbul substantiates
the theory that ecological gradientsin this case between rainorest and
savannahencourage species adaptation and experimentation.26
Theyeven encourage species evolution and generation. In this particular ecotone,
savanna species are adapting to orest environments, and orest species are
adapting to savanna environments. But even more than this, species such as
the greenbul have evolved to a degree that they can no longer occupy any habi-
tat but the ecotone, which is distinctly dierent rom either bounding habitat.
Because the students o the ecotone culture share the space and their work
with others unlike themselves with diverse species there will be those cases
in which one enters as one thing and evolves into something else: an architect,
or instance, evolves into a musician/architect; or an astronomer evolves intoan astronomer/environmentalist.27 Like the Greenbul, though, it is not a
change o song but a new tonality that honors both the song structure and the
new context. This means that this new talent will acquire the ability to contrib-
ute in more than one feld and maintain a key presence in multiple camps.
Theecotone analogy is extensive and highly productive. Diversity o spe-
cies, new species development, keystone species as engineers, distribution
o nutrients, corridors or transer o creatures and stueven the idea o
microhabitats (smaller habitats within larger habitats, like a tidal pool)are
all intensely relevant in terms o conceiving, designing, and implementing
organizational structures and mechanisms or this innovation ecology model.
Each component might independently have an impact and add value to the
system, but the act that the ecotone is a system, rather than a collection o
components, means that their collective impact scales.
These discrete components, which are light, agile, and diverse in nature, are
easier to bring together and to und, and they can take risk. Failure o one
component, or one piece o work, does not mean ailure or the system, and
risk-taking is supported and sanctioned. Multiple talents (species) can be
tapped as opposed to orcing talent to adapt to larger top-down goals. Talent
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 37
buys in and work equity builds.
A mechanical systema watch or instanceis divisible, while an ecosystem isindivisible because o well developed interdependences.28
Because ecosystems are indivisible, they are environments where all work
eeds back into the system, aecting the entire system. This means that while
the innovation ecology model may be structured around discrete packages
o work done by individuals and groups (classes, seminars, labs, micro-labs,
micro-symposia, etc), the actual work o the ecosystem is interconnected,
interdependent, and limitless. Work done over a week, or over months,
continually eeds back into the system, altering the existing and uture course
o the work. The complex series o exchanges adapts to emerging trends,inormation and practices.
Because ecotones are constantly negotiating the interaction o two dierent
habitats in tension, the two activities/pursuits depend upon and sustain each
other. The experimental work (the work o inquiry) eeds back into the ac-
creditation + work (the core work), keeping it relevant, inormed, and moving
orward at the pace o the environment around it. The accreditation + work
grounds the work o inquiry through successul practices. This interdepen-
dence is achieved through the work in the middle which is the work o the
innovation ecotone.
The innovation ecotones resilience comes rom its indivisibility and its capac-
ity to incorporate even disruptive change, thanks to its species diversity and
richness. As conditions in the environment changenew problems, projects,
inormation, and practicesdierent talents rom diverse areas o expertise
respond, taking up the challenges and orming new alliances. These alliances
orm new practices with dierent inection points; sometimes one entity is
the driver, sometimes another.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 38
The great urbanist Jane Jacobs was among the frst to identiy cities diverse
economic and social structures as the true engines o growth Jacobs argued
that the jostling o many dierent proessions and dierent types o people, allin a dense environment, is an essential spur to innovationto the creation o
things that are truly new. 29
Jostling can be interpreted as physical contact, but it can also reer to the
critical inrastructure o connectivity. Because the innovation ecotone is a
distributed culture containing many smaller events and mechanisms, com-
munication inrastructure o all sorts is essential.
It is expected that certain individuals in the model proposed will inhabit
both the adjacent edge and the ecotone. Those in accreditation +aculty,teaching assistants, adjunct aculty, technical consultants o all sorts, digital
and library support sta, etc.,can and will move into the space in between to
work on certain problems and or certain events.
Those individuals who work in the micro-lab edge can also occupy the in
between: aculty (tenured or not and including those rom other disciplines,
schools and countries), research assistants, industry researchers and con-
sultants, artists, flm makers, business, and anyone valuable rom anywhere
with the necessary talent or the situation at hand. Since the micro-labs are
experimental and multidisciplinary, when these individuals inhabit the space
in between, they bring a dierent ethos. They add richness, diversity, hyper-
disciplinary expertise, and implementation know-how. The dierent talents/
species associated with this edge, along with their capacity to adapt and com-
municate, energize the space with curiosity and the belie that anything can be
done.
Ecotones are specifcally known or being sources o evolutionary novelty.30
Here, the species o evolutionary novelty is the students. Students are capable
o inhabiting both edges o the innovation culture. But more importantly, like
the greenbul o the rainorest/savannah edge with its own song and increased
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES A CULTURE OF INNOVATION AS (CORRIDORS AND) ECOTONE 39
aeronautic capabilities, they survive and thrive by their ability to exploit the
variety o conditions within the ecotone itsel. They participate in the events
and mechanisms. Held together by social networking, digital (and non-digital)protocols that are prevalent and ubiquitous today, they are the biological,
psychological, and sociological matter o the innovation culture. The more
they participate in this interstitial zone, the more their disposition or inquiry
develops in relationship to grounded skills and knowledge. They will become
elastic. They will become accustomed to change and in act will thrive on
change, debate, riction and risk, all essential to operating in the twenty-frst
century.
Ecotones unction like the membrane o a cell, negotiating the movement
o materials and conditions around them, and are subject to competition,conict, and riction, even in their most stable states.
When disturbances o signifcance occur, the impact on the ecotone is greater
than on the bordering ecosystems. A storm does not have as great an eect
on the marine ecosystem at sea as it does within the tidal zone. The edge o a
rainorest is more ragile than the interior because its proximity to the savan-
nah creates sun and wind conditions that penetrate the canopy, drying out the
soil so that fre is a greater risk and more destructive on the edge than in the
interior. Thereore, species that live in ecotones have greater adaptability. In
act generally species o an ecotone (actually) require a level o disturbance
or regeneration.31
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 40
As proposed at the outset, this paper outlines an innovation ecotone model
as a sustainable environment o pervasive innovation that is talent rich and
talent diverse.
As an ecosystem that is indivisible, that is species (talent) rich and species
diverse, it is about sustainability at two levels. It is about sustainable innovation
at the level o the system. And it is about sustainable innovation at the level o
deep, and even highly specialized, talent.32
As an ecotone that is a specifc type o indivisible ecosystem connecting two
habitats, it means that the talent that develops within this environment is
uniquely adapted to negotiate core activitysanctioned knowledge bases, sanc-
tioned power bases, etc.and also the creative experimentation that is allowedto occur in an edge environment o irrepressible curiosity, specialized talent, and
where learning through ailures is its own agency or progress. Innovation is sus-
tainable because it is pervasive, and because it negotiates both core/sanctioned
activities and the pull o the dynamics o change.
Emerging ecology theory recognizes not only the impact, but the valuable role
o disturbance to evolution. Disturbance is not only an integral part o any
natural system, but the greatest diversity occurs in landscapes large enough to
contain various serial or successional stages as the result o disturbance events
in the past The resulting habitat heterogeneity maintains conditions suitable
or a greater number o species.33 Implied in this is the assumption that greater
diversity and richness o species contributes to the resiliency o the system.
The twenty-frst century is one that promises perpetual and persistent change.
The ecotone analogy, as more than a metaphoras a structural and operational
constructis invaluable as a model that uses disturbance and change to develop
talent that can sustain itsel and thrive on disturbance and change. This learning
environment is intended to cultivate the education/evolution o students with
new capacities, behaviors, and tendencies that are open, adaptable and elastic.
INNOVATION ECOTONE AS A CONCEPTFOR A SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION ECOLOGY(in education and elsewhere)
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EPILOGUE 42
Integral to the Indo-Pacifc, and much o the tropical, estuarine zones, man-
groves and mudskippersrhizophora and periophthalmuscan live nowhere
else. One, a terrestrial organism turned aquatic and the other aquatic turnedterrestrial, they both manage the air-water interace, which is one o the most
complex transitions to overcome. In addition to negotiating an environment
o dierence, they are also subjected to continuous disturbances both cyclical
(tides) and event-driven in nature (typhoons). As such they have developed
unique characteristics o adaptation.
Mangroves dominate tropical coastlines. Few other plant species can tolerate
the salinity, the cyclical ooding, and the sot bottomed anaerobic soil condi-
tions. Mangroves flter salt out through their roots and leaves, creating their
own supply o nearly salt-ree water that they store in their thick leaves. Theydeal with the anaerobic soil conditions and continual ooding by taking in
oxygen rom the air through specialized aerial and/or snorkel-like roots that
rise up rom the mud. These woven spidery roots create a structural integrity
that holds ast to the sot soil in the tidal zone.
Mangroves not only survive under these conditions, they also create an
ecological habitat that supports many intricate coastal ecosystems. Their
tangled root systems flter out sedimentation and pollutants while providing
the smaller fsh critical cover rom predators. This unique root structure
neutralizes tidal activity as well, and by calming waves during sea storms,
delicate speciescoral, shrimp, crabs, sea grasscan ourish. Additionally,
decomposing leaves and branches on the seabottom provide rich nutrients or
plant and animal lie, such as the mudskipper.
The mudskipper is a class o amphibious fsh that shuttles back and orth
rom land to water. Compared with its ully aquatic cousins, the mudskipper
exhibits a series o unusual physiological and behavioral adaptations to its
land/water liestyle.
EPILOGUE
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EPILOGUE 43
The mudskippers pectoral fns provide buoyancy but also permit them to
walk, jump, and climb across sand and obstacles. Some mudskippers can jump
as high as two eet. T heir uniquely engineered eyes and lenses allow them toextend their eyes above water like periscopes, and move them independently,
increasing their feld o vision. Breathing through their gills like all submerged
fsh, they fll enlarged gill chambers with water beore moving on to land. This
portable oxygen tank allows them to breathe while on land and to burrow deep
into the mud, where they thermoregulate, lay their eggs, and avoid high-tide
marine predators and low-tide aerial predators. Their capillary-rich skin and
mouth membranes provide additional air.
Even more curious are the behavioral adaptations o this species. As an
aquatic creature, mudskippers school like any other fsh. On land, however,they become highly aggressive and territorial, building low mud ridges around
their particular plots o mud. While on land where the temperature changes
are more extreme, the mudskipper has developed several thermoregulatory
mechanisms: changing color; adjusting body positioning relative to the sun;
burrowing; and clinging to shaded wet zones o planks and rocks.
As extraordinary as both mudskippers and mangroves are, these are only two
o a plenitude o species inhabiting this complex and dynamic water-land
ecotonal habitatmost all o them dependent on the mangroves unique root
system.
The intricate root system o the mangroves that shelters small fsh like the
mudskipper is a rhizomic system. A rhizome is a horizontal stem that stores
ood and enables reproduction. Rhizomic structures are networks o stems
that scatter in all directions, in contrast to hierarchically organized vertical
tree structures. There are not a million roots growing into an orderly tree, but
a milllion little underground prolierations. 34 Any point o the rhizome may
be connected to any other point. The stems intertwine, scatter and spread, and
as a rootstock rather than a conventional root, when broken at any spot, they
grow again.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EPILOGUE 44
Rhizomic systems can be small or vast; ginger roots, a garden o irises, a clump
o mangroves, a grass lawn, or an entire bamboo orest. Because its roots are
horizontal, because they can reproduce in any direction rom any spot, and
because they connect to each other, a rhizome is a single, but highly complex
system, and unctions as a single organism. They dey any classifcation as
individual entities. Instead, these distributed plant systems are populations
multiplicitesrather than single unifed upright things. I one rootor an
entire portion o the root systemails, others fll in. I nutrients are not con-
sistently available across a habitat, the interconnection o the system allows
distribution o ood to all parts. In a rhizomic system, ailure can occur and
the truism o a chain being only as strong as its weakest link is not valid; here
weaker links are tolerated and supported. Failure can eed back as nutrients or
the entire system, allowing rhizomic systems to tolerate a lot o distress.
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES EPILOGUE 45
While mangroves, themselves, are the dominant, or keystone species, o the tropi-
cal estuarine ecotone, their rhizomic root system is also analogous to the entire
ecotonal ecosystem itsel. It negotiates the air/water interace as a third thing.
From Carl Jung, to Deleuze and Guattari, to authors o hypertext, rhizomic
systems have ascinated so many because they replace hierarchical constructs
with an alternate model o heteregeneity and multiplicity. The rhizomic sys-
tem is a model o integrated multiplicity and managed disturbance, both made
highly productive or the regeneration and evolution o the total system. As a
distributed system o populations, but one that unctions as a single organism,
the rhizomic structure is a precise and prolifc analogy or the innovation
ecotone space that this paper has put orward.
END35
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DESIGN EDUCATION AND INNOVATION ECOTONES 46
ENDNOTES
1 James Corner, Ecology and Landscape as Agents o Creativity, in Ecological design and plan-ning, George F. Thompson and Frederick R. Steiner, editors, (New York: John Wiley, 1997),
p.99.
2 In an intertidal zone, conditions exist that are similar to those in the ocean: waterin move-ment; salinity; sea creatures; sea ora; the composition, orm, and structure o its geologicalsubstrate, etc. At the same time, conditions exist that are similar to those on land: the composi-
tion and structure o the same geological substrate; no water; airin movementwind; landcreatures; land ora, etc. But conditions in the tidal zone oscillate between being like onecondition and being like the other, as the tides rise and recede. Even when most like the sea, athigh tide, the intertidal zone is still dierent rom the sea. The water temperature is higher; waveaction and the movement around rocks and other articulations o the geological substrate ismore dynamic; the salinity is dierent; sea ora and auna are subjected to moments o dryness.When most like the land, at low tide, it is still dierent rom the land. T he ground, whetherbeach or exposed bedrock, is more saturated; its chemical composition is dierent as decayingsea creatures add material; pockets o trapped sea water hold unique micro-environments. And
even more signifcantly, as the intertidal zone transitions rom one state to another, as it cyclesthrough water moving in and water moving out, it creates a unique environment o change anddisturbance.
3 Creek Connections Riparian Buers Module, Eco-Tones. Adapted rom: The Edge oHome in Project WILD Aquatic Council or Environmental Education, 1992 AND Field Lab:Measuring Species Diversity by Jim Palmer, Ph.D., Director o Creek Connections, Box 10,Allegheny College, p. 2.
4 Richard T.T. Forman, Land Mosaics. The ecology o landscapes and regions. (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1995), pp. xiii-xiv.
5 Conversations with Jane Amidon, Landscape Section Head at the Knowlton School o Archi-tecture, Ohio State University. Also reerenced in