ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the design of narrative environments as a transdisciplinary practice that draws together thinking and skills from many different sources. Its collaborative methods challenge deep-seated assumptions about hierarchies and boundaries in art and design. The design of narrative environments also integrates skills from the world of museology, because one manifestation of the design of narrative environments is exhibition-making. The main difference is that service design propositions tend to resolve as diagrams of systems and products, whereas narrative environments resolve as narrative spatial experiences, emphasising both the narrative and the environmental nodes in the tripartite network. From the towers of Angkor Wat in Cambodia to the cathedrals of Western Europe, they are some of the most historic precursors of narrative environments. Narrative architecture and urban planning have also been addressed by other architects and theorists.
