ABSTRACT
The question is: what can you learn about landscape architectural design by exploring what you already know about reading, writing, and telling stories? The answer is: a lot. Imagine a blank piece of paper or empty computer screen. Your eyes wander. Place a word on it and a story starts. The same applies to the placement of a point on a blank sheet of paper or canvas; suddenly you have a sense of here and there, I and thou, an ability to orient yourself. Similarly, given an object such as a landmark in a landscape, you orient yourself, estimate distances, and have a sense of where you are, where you are going, and where you’ve been. In The Analogy a word is like a point. A point in basic design is like an object in a landscape. As words collect, guided by grammar and syntax, they make sentences. As points move through space, guided by basic design principles, they inscribe lines. As objects connect across a landscape they call into being paths, roads, highways, and edges or boundaries. The relationships between language, basic design, and landscape design culminate with the realization that landscapes can be authored to provide narratives which people, as they traverse landscapes, can and do read. Consider how you read a landscape when walking alone versus hand in hand with your partner, riding a bicycle, or pushing a grocery cart. As you integrate language, basic design, and landscape design you come to see the designer-as-author, the landscape-as-text, and the landscape participant-as-reader.
