Tuesday, June 28, 2011

revisiting place

The notion of place and creating place is frequently discussed in design school and professional practice. Over the past 10 months I have had the opportunity to understand what it means to be "rooted" in place and what it means to actually live in "place." It is easy to get lost in the idea that when we design places people will only use them for a certain period of time and remember them as something special. We, myself included, may tend to get caught up in the idea that we are designing solely for the visitor and not for the permanent resident. (We are designing for ourselves, imagining how we would use the place and what we think is appropriate)

After a semester long seminar of reading about and stretching the discourse on place theory, I have rather confidently confirmed that what I thought I knew was far from what I actually know now.

When I think back to my understanding of place literature, I realize that I kept on relating place and the creation of place to either my comfort zone or my ideal travel destination or past experiences. These concepts address the local and the short-term but don't comprehensively address place as something long-term, adaptable and resilient to the forces of change. After living in Aspen, a place I initially thought was my comfort zone and my ideal travel destination for the past 10 months I have come to realize that if we want to create place as designers, we need to be able to leave our preconceived notions behind and listen to the existing uniqueness of a certain place.

I'm getting at the concept of how well designers can work outside of their scale, their region and their country - and the limitations we should consciously acknowledge. For instance, a lot of us from the NY/NJ area have a far different notion of what makes a place special than someone from an impoverished neighborhood in, say, Kansas. Further, if we expand this concept to designing an urban plaza in a Santiago, Chile neighborhood, then we will be pushed even further away from our understanding of culture and societal wants and needs.

So what's the big idea? If I came to Aspen as a designer working on a park, an open space network or a residence with the understanding I had prior to living here for 10 months, my design would have addressed the items I thought were important. It would not have addressed the seasonality, the ecology, the rhythm and frequency of tourism and, most importantly, would not have understood the needs of the long term, permanent residents. Sure, you are thinking, this is why we conduct site analysis (but, in reality, how well do we do that on average?) have public meetings and work with local consultants. And, sure, you are correct. But, how much of our final product is influenced by our initial vision, our feelings and our internal conception of beauty?

If we think about place theory and think about more than just what we like about where we grew up and where we have traveled and instead think about what place means for the people living in the area we are designing, then we have a better chance of designing something special. We may actually design place, and the people who use it every day may actually want to continue to use it and integrate it into their daily lives.

Ultimately, design has to include research and, dare I say, even science. But, don't get me wrong, if we forget art and beauty then we might as well not even put pen to paper in the first place. Design has to respond to context, and I believe that is the elementary framework for place making.


  1. Is a McHargian overlay or a string of data as powerful and moving to someone as MVV's stone wall at Tear Drop or the waterfall at Paley, for example?

    I would argue that a scientist may find the scientific process artful and inspirational, but when we look at science are we more moved by the manifestation of something through the integration and implementation scientific processes or the science itself?

    Ultimately, can science alone be art if it's not conveyed to the world in some sort of understandable or physical form?

    Science can certainly create art, but I don't believe art can create science.

    Science creates art. Art conveys science?

  2. I am very happy to see that you are still thinking about and writing about "place." I heard someone comment the other day that "we travel to learn more about our home." I like this concept however, it still does not resolve the issue with "traveling designers" as you begin to indicate in this piece.

  3. From my experience of becoming more of a traveling designer these days, I realize in order to succeed at all I have to be hyper-attentive to everything around me at all times. It's more than just an attention to landscape, architecture, form, feeling, etc. It has to include talking to people, both locals and tourists (depending on the location and goals of the project).

    We always preach that landscape architecture needs to respond to the needs of society. The reality is, landscape architects tend to respond more to the needs and demands of the client than to society (in order to be profitable and to gain the respect, trust and repeat business of clients). So, if we really want to practice what we preach, we need to consciously take the steps to satisfy the client and the public, the private or whomever will use the spaces we create.

    It's increasingly difficult when you add in budget, agreed upon scope of work and timelines to truly achieve a context sensitive design that responds to the biocultural landscape. It can be done, but I think to be a good designer the creativity in creating places is more than just form or sustainability, etc. It's about creatively managing and educating clients to create places that respond to all the present and future user groups and are able to flex and adapt as the times change.

    That's the challenge of the traveling designer. But, in my opinion, it all starts with being hyper-attentive and knowing what to look for and what to ask.