Part Four introduces a three-step design process. In it, you, as the designer-author, write a first- or second-person narrative of someone or group experiencing your design. Yes, I am aware you do not have a design at this point. Yes, asking you to write a short narrative is odd but you’ll come to find the characters in your written experiential narrative are your eventual design’s participants and will lead you through the emerging design. With the help of three authors (Rae, 1996; Kooser, 2005; Lamott, 1994) a graphics instructor (Wester, 1990), and an American Studies professor (Conron, 1974) you come to appreciate how identifying the likely participants in your design’s narrative can introduce you to a design as a written landscape narrative. Once written, even in a rough form, your narrative, with the help of your peers, is refined and turned into a storyboard. Finally, the storyboard, again with the help of your cohorts, is turned into your proposed landscape design.
Given the first four parts we arrive at Part Five’s logical question: “Are we, as the designers of other’s lifeworlds, ethically responsible to at least meet if not exceed the experiential expectations of those we serve?”
Conron, J. 1974. The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry. New York: Oxford University.
Edwards, B. 1999. The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence. New York: Distributed by St. Martin’s Press.
Kooser, T. 2005. The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.
Lamott, A. 1994. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor.
Rae, C. M. 1996. Movies of the Mind: How to Build a Short Story. Santa Fe, NM: Sherman Asher.
Simonds, J. O. 1961. Landscape Architecture: A Manual of Site Planning and Design. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wester, L. 1990. Design Communication for Landscape Architects. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.