I don’t think it’s so bad to have work that steps away from the obvious and simply creates spaces that just feel good. There may be a lot involved in creating that good feeling, and we might consider it a compliment if a client or visitor to a space comes to realize over time why they like a particular place.
It certainly is nice to get instant and positive reactions to our work. But our landscapes take time (usually, unless they’re places like Martha Schwartz’s Whitehead Institute rooftop garden) to evolve into their best selves, much like people or plants or relationships. Too often, people seek to understand phenomena immediately, without allowing time for perceptions and experience of place to ripen.
Because landscape architects work with the element of time, it can be disheartening to see that others may not appreciate fully what we do because it isn’t immediately evident. And when a place isn’t maintained as it has been designed, our design intent may never be allowed to grow into realization, and may in fact disappear entirely.
So perhaps we need to tackle the issue of self-effacement on two fronts: 1) We might campaign more vigorously for consistent and sustained maintenance of our designed places and 2) We might start to educate our clients and the public about taking the longer view of our work. Hmm. We need to sell the steak, not just the sizzle, especially since we’ve taken the time and made the effort to grill that steak. (Which I guess leads to the question of if we have enough sizzle, or perhaps, in some cases, too much….)
Deb
Toby
When you do drawings for clients, do you do one for what it’ll be like this year, and one for 5 years away (or some other number)?
I tend to show an idealized site; that is, I illustrate what the site will look like in five years or so, when plants have grown in a bit and you don’t see so much mulch. That presents problems, obviously. If we set two sets of expectations (one for what the newly planted site will look like, and one projected several years into the future), our clients may have a better idea of how the design will grow into its best self. On the other hand, it’s a bit of a challenge to bill for time-dependent perspectives. But I guess that’s a matter of setting another expectation at the project’s outset, the expectation that the scope of work may include Before, After, and After After images.