An Ecological Aesthetic

Abstract

An ecological theory of design, built on current theories of conscious and unconscious creativity, provides an inclusive, descriptive foundation for a new theory of aesthetics, one that is useful for explaining both artistic beauty and natural beauty, a theory relevant to both architecture and landscape architecture. In the construction of this ecological aesthetic, central concepts that link design principles and aesthetic theory are identified and differentiated. This paper expands traditional principles of formal aesthetics—unity and balance—and proposes a third principle, complementarity. It presents these three principles—inclusive unity, dynamic balance, and complementarity—as an ecological paradigm of aesthetics and demonstrates their power to explain aesthetic experience and aesthetic quality of designs and other creative products.