Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

Design education must include theoretical, conceptual, and practical knowledge that will advance the students’ abilities to seek out, identify, and address problems in our rapidly changing world. Many of the issues will be ones with which the students themselves have no personal connection. Because designers of the built environment shape space and experience for a broad and diverse audience, the ability to consider those outside of their direct involvement is a fundamental ethic of responsible design, regardless of discipline. In Landscape Architecture, considering other organisms and ecological systems is necessary and synchronous with the expression of the human experience. When approaching design, we look at layers of information at multiple scales to ensure a full understanding of the problem and how solutions might then affect living and non-living systems beyond a project’s boundaries. When I began teaching in an allied discipline, the approach was more narrowly focused on the project site and its current or potential users, often leading to disconnection or disregard of the context. Theories of environmental psychology were explored early to consider social and cultural contexts for human-centered design, but the ecological theory of interconnectedness among all living systems was not introduced until their final year as part of a Sustainable Design course. For truly inclusive and sustainable design, ecological principles are foundational. Integrating principles of interaction, diversity, and adaptation related to all living things and their environments early in design education is one way to acknowledge the true responsibility of shaping the built environment.