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Virginia Tech

The Art of Designing a Meaningful Landscape through Storytelling

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Meaning in the landscape is a concept that is receiving attention from many landscape architects asking the questions: how is meaning found in the landscape, or what makes a landscape meaningful? While there are many design processes that incorporate meaning into the design, it is the art of storytelling that the thesis investigates. The research for the thesis and a comparison analysis is performed on three texts, which explore meaning in the landscape. The three texts are Marc Treib's "Must Landscapes Mean?"; Matthew Potteiger and Jamie Purinton's Landscape Narratives, and Mark Francis and Randolph T. Hester, Jr.'s The Meaning of Gardens: Idea, Place, and Action. Applying these approaches to case studies has resulted in the finding of common ideas between the three texts. The commonalities led to my position that storytelling can be used as an approach to design, and that landscapes designed as a story narrative can be meaningful. The design project investigated the strength of the position on a site in the West Potomac Park in Washington DC. The story for the project is a Japanese folktale that communicates the culture of Japan. The project is a case study that explores if the set of design principles within the storytelling approach can invest meaning into a landscape.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Landscape Architecture
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Landscape Architecture
Department dc:contributor.department
Landscape Architecture
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2006

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Garman, Keli L.
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Clements, Terry L.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Emmons, Paul F.
  • Yglesias, Caren L.

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-05042006-161510
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/32181

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Garman, Keli L.. The Art of Designing a Meaningful Landscape through Storytelling. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/32181