The Experience of Environment
by Lauren Colunga, PLA, ASLA
BACKGROUND
We live in a wondrous age for the sharing of information. While society has moved well beyond the printed page as the sole method of disseminating information and transitioned into the realms of radio, TV, blogs, podcasts, the internet, and social media, the physical printed book remains a stalwart fixture in everyday life (statistical proof here). Like a favorite spot you return to every time you visit a far off place, a good book provides comfort and continues to serve as the perfect analogy for landscapes, although this time through the lens of environmental considerations.
SETTING
Park(ing) Day in Arlington, VA 2019.
Books reflect setting in myriad ways. The author creates a setting within the story, but the physical book is a setting of its own. The materials used to create a book reflect the technology and available resources at the time of publication. Was the book hand-made? Are the pages vellum? Is it hardback or paperback? Physical or e-book? Consumed once and tossed (like a magazine) or meant to last for generations?
Likewise, landscapes are constructed using a variety of materials and reflect their nearby regions, cultures, and environments. Designed landscapes can be durable and last generations (depending on maintenance and design constraints) or they can be fleeting and temporary (e.g. PARK(ing) Day or RHS show gardens).
Whether permanent or temporary, the materials selected to create the landscape will impact a visitor’s experience and the surrounding area. Are the materials durable and long lasting? Are the benches and amenities comfortable? Is the space meant for active or passive use? How does the design impact other nearby spaces? Does it fit within the context of its surroundings? We have all put a book back on the shelf simply because we didn’t like the feel of it, or it wasn’t what the cover led us to believe. Similarly, landscapes imbue a sense of place to their visitors and either encourage future use or convince someone to step away and make it a one time visit.
composing the story
WC Gryder House (1962), Ocean Springs, Mississippi, by Bruce Goff. Photograph: Elena Dorfman/Redux/eyevine
Material selection also impacts the surrounding environment both socially and environmentally. Invasive plant species may spread and overtake native species. Water runoff can be collected, reused, or even made into a water feature or it can be a nuisance to the surrounding area. The design can be respectful of local history and architecture or it can make a statement and be intentionally incongruous. In the right designer’s hands the landscape may even be able to do both.
When a story is well written, it has depth and meaning and shapes our view of the world forever after. Reading the tale was (hopefully) a joy and probably seemed almost effortless. You imagine the author waking up one morning with a fully formed novel springing forth from their head, like Athena bursting out of Zeus’s head as a fully grown woman. Surely the hardest part for the author was getting everything down on paper before it was forgotten, right? Maybe not.
a lasting conclusion
One of the truest lessons in life is that when someone makes something look easy, it was probably the result of painstaking planning, effort, time, and revision. Successful planning of outdoor spaces is no different. It takes a steady hand and years of experience to finesse the complementary, yet sometimes competing interests, of planning, aesthetics, community, and environment within the real world of budgets and project deadlines. The story each landscape tells will reflect both the client and the designer working together. After all, you are telling the story you want to share, the story you would want to be a part of. When creating something you love, whether it is a landscape or a book, make sure it represents the best of you and work with others that share and support your vision.
DEFINING A NEW GENRE
Design can also look to the past while creating a new future. I highly recommend watching Thomas Rainer speak about ‘The Next Green Revolution (9 mins)’ and about how changing our paradigm and working with the environment can lead to humanity telling its own, new, story in concert with nature.