ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how different theoretical relationships can advance an integration of ecology in the urban environment, through an understanding of different theoretical languages and disciplines. The aim could be achieved in part by recognising of the interdependency of the needs of culture and nature. Comparisons of diverse theories from seemingly opposing fields could then be used as instruments to formulate a common language and a common perception. By examining the vocabularies of urban legibility, landscape urbanism, landscape ecology and biosemiotics, new concepts of cognitive landscape ecology and ecological syntax will be advanced. The terms also imply an engagement with ecology as an active cultural resource, instead of dualist assumptions that human activity is antithetical to ecological diversity.
