ABSTRACT
Ethics in Landscape Architectural Design Practice, the focus of Chapter 10, may seem a strange concluding chapter to a book on doing landscape designs that give shape, form, and character to the lifeworlds of others. Actually, Chapter 10’s introduction of the ethical responsibility of designers for those for whom they design is a logical conclusion to Landscape Architecture as Storytelling. Almost nothing exists in the education, certification, and professionalization of landscape architects that speaks of their responsibilities to those left to live with what they design. Chapter 10 argues for an understanding of design as an outgrowth of the personal and social contexts in which designs are placed. A summary of the socialization of design professionals illuminates the growing separation of designers from their clientele, the greater public, and the places in which that public resides. The contemporary existence of this separation is further supported by the education and works of planners, landscape architects, architects, and interior designers.
Chapter 10 explores designers’ ethical responsibility to meet the expectations that comprise people’s daily routines as those activities help sustain a place and its resources. A close look into what constitutes design practice highlights the discontinuity between doing design for the sake of doing design and doing design for the sake of its expressive content as read by those experiencing your design. This final look at design deals with professional ethics in terms of designers’ responsibilities to people and their live, work, play, and learning environments. Chapter 10 asks the question, if designs do not at least meet people’s experiential expectations, or exceed them, are we, as the designers of other’s worlds, being ethically responsible?
