This is the first in a series of 38 installments introducing and exploring a fun, comfortable way to learn architectural, landscape architectural, and interior design. Drawn from the recently released Landscape as Storytelling (2022, Routledge), the approach is based upon how we learned to read, write, and, more importantly, tell stories. Everyone is an accomplished storyteller. Everyone has a rudimentary understanding of reading and writing. Learning based on what you already know makes discovering new knowledge comfortable.
Newly published Landscape Architecture as Storytelling (Routledge) shares a journey from a seeming disquieting ignorance of what constitutes design to, years later, a comfortable and exciting understanding. The journey is shared here for landscape, architecture, and interior design students, professional practitioners, and for those of you who like to design places in which people live, work, play, raise families, and grow old.
Ever heard the phrase, the “art and science of design”? Having transferred as an undergraduate student from civil engineering into landscape architecture I quickly realized the schism between the two as I am sure my wannabe design peers in architecture and interior design also did. As with civil engineering, the equations associated with the sciences supportive of the three design professions weren’t my stumbling block. Design turned out to be the Great Unknown, and now, looking back, I can’t help but think my professors unknowingly perpetuated the idea that design was new, would take years to learn, and could only be shared through design jargon, copious assorted forms of written and visual jargon, and the ambiguities and assumptions that accompany them. Like a good student I unknowingly accepted that unspoken premise.