First, “good” ecological design must enable a biological function important to the ecological health of its regional and local setting. “Better” ecological design would address the functions that are strategically critical to this health in a given bioregion—such as improving water quality, conserving plant or animal species at risk of local or global extinction, increasing soil fertility, or improving air quality. “Best” ecological design would be able to show these benefits in measurable ways and would stay in touch with the latest thinking in the sciences and engineering (and social and environmental ethics) to make sure it makes sense to keep pursuing those benefits. Second, “good” ecological design has to be more cost-effective than our existing methods of addressing (or ignoring) urban ecological health.
"Replicability ties ecological design to the concept of infrastructure as used by planners, economists, engineers, and even the new theorists of landscape urbanism.
"Third, “good” ecological design has to be elegantly parsimonious…the same physical forms (structures, plantings and topography) must fulfill both ecological and social needs. Forms have to be associated with cultural meaning that is engaged and valued.
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