As you’ll come to realize, Simonds’ “aha” moment (1961, 225) is the cornerstone of Landscape as Storytelling. Feeling something critical was missing from his education, something keeping him from developing superior designs, his wondering was rewarded with the realization that we design “…not places, spaces, or things [but] experiences (my italics). The places, spaces, and things take their form from the planned experience” (1961, 225). This was that shift from too much attention being given nouns to more attention and importance being given verbs. My introduction to Simonds’ epiphany was the beginning of my “People Come First” realization.
My second major learning moment came with Betty Edwards’ approach to learning how to draw but not by learning how to draw as much as learning how to see what you are looking at or imagining. Her seeing exercises fortified Simonds’ thinking. In almost a Zen-like approach Edwards’ exercises helped me see what isn’t there and in doing so helped me consider people’s anticipated experiences in terms of a design’s spatial character.
The third learning moment was Benzel’s student’s description of the Imperial Tea Garden and her accompanying sketches. Her observations provide proof of the extent to which designers can control people’s behaviors, the sequencing of what they see and don’t see, and experience and don’t experience. Designers can choreograph people’s experiences and emotions (Halprin, 1974). Think about it. Walking over a uniform ground plane we are allowed the luxury of looking around; seeing where we are going; and maybe seeing how to get there. But when “The new path is made of stepping-stones spaced far enough apart to require us to look down [taking the view away] and concentrate on where we are stepping. It is harder to walk on this path because the spacing between the stones and their height and unevenness make it impossible to assume a normal walking rhythm. We cannot look around but must focus on what we are doing, where we are stepping, to avoid tripping or falling” (Benzel, 1998, 175-176).
Benzel, K. 1998. The Room in Context: Design Beyond Boundaries. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Halprin, L. 1974. Taking Part: a workshop approach to collective creativity. Cambridge, MA: MIT.