The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering With Nature
program started about a decade ago, which coincides with the
origins of EcoShape’s Building with Nature program. How have
these programs helped and inspired each other?

It’s been a wonderful opportunity to have these two efforts
ongoing in parallel, while operating in different social as well
as geographic and physical contexts. I’m not sure we have fully
taken advantage of the power in combining our efforts, but
we have always been connected, and we derived value from
sharing ideas and findings. Our relationship also has rhetorical
value. It is a powerful argument, being able to point to two
separate activities coming to similar conclusions based on
an independent set of projects and examples. In the future,
Engineering With Nature and Building with Nature will be able
to make even better use of this lever in our collaboration as we
seek more practical implementation.

If you can’t address the human dimension of a complex problem, you are not going to make progress towards solving it.

Todd Bridges