landscape bento : any WHERE any TIME

Abstract

This practicum is a collection of ideas intended as a framework for an alternative approach to understanding creativity and process in landscape architecture. An exploration of the values that guide our thinking is a critical ongoing activity that weaves into creativity and decision making in design process. Relationships exist that when examined provide not a method but an approach. A re-interpretation of landscape architecture and a bento box resulted. Writing took on the first person in the present tense as a way to work through both writer’s block and designer’s block. The blocks provided many moments for critical thinking. Food and cooking are a passion. Connections and networks exist in our personal environments but are most often not noticed and certainly unexamined. The relationship between food and cooking, and the environment and designing revealed a similar process of creativity. This was used as a metaphor to act as an alternative approach to aid in moving through doubt and block. Through an explicit, conscious consideration of passions and values, a deeper understanding of the process and product of landscape architecture emerged.