Spunky, there really isn't anyplace else unless I want to take the train to the NYBG, which I may do when I am done here, one course at a time. There are also some distance learning programs that look interesting, and if we do end up moving, I'll look for opportunities to improve my skills in our new location.

Do some research before getting excited about anything at the NYBG. Several years ago I took some design classes at what was basically a satellite campus of the NYBG (IES in Millbrook). They weren't remotely as intensive, rigorous, or interesting as what you have been doing. If they had been, I would have kept at it.

>Do you see any sign that Saypoint is going to blindly follow the instructor's bias views? I don't.

I didn't say that! It's obvious from his "is this guy for real?" type of comments that he won't! All I'm saying is that the instructor is bad. He's not giving "basics". He's not giving weird constraints to sstretch the students. He's giving biases and trying to pass them off as basics.

>This is almost a universal and timeless situation in the teacher/student relationship in landscape design. Not all teachers are this way, but they are around, hve been around, and will continue to be around. The teaching and the learning goes on despite them.

Yup. But the instructor is still bad. *g* That's my only assertion!

>That situation existed every step of the way.

It exists in other fields as well. I'm a lot more onery that Saypoint (and my fields weren't as purely subjective when it came to grading--there's always an expert to reference), so I tended to get in fights with certain faculty members. Only a small percentage, but still... I picked my battles, but there wasn't one that I wasn't proven right in.

>All I am saying is that that bias is not going to hurt the students because they recognize it and challenge it in their own minds.

The GOOD students. The idiots would believe the instructor if he told them the sky was green. Because he's the instructor and he KNOWS.

>The design of the course and curriculum is more powerful than any instructor. They are designed to make you think and part of that way of thinking is going to challenge that teacher's bias.

Sometimes. But some instructors are so challenged by original thought that they try to eliminate any chance of it from their curricula. And some succeed.

>When I completed my degree, I had four landscape architecture professors that taught the bulk of the LA courses. They each had different views and biases. ... Years later, I find huge value in having all of those experiences. I also find that even if I do not use the priorities of some of them, I have to work with people who do.

That's only true if there is some validity to what they said (from their aesthetic/philosophy, if nothing else). IF their biases were arbitrary and from way out in the left field, then they aren't worth anything--you won't run into anyone with that incoherent checklist of biases again. There must be a certain level of either competence or "in-tune-ness" with society. I don't think this guy has either.

I do think that students should be faced with many different types of gardens to create and many different constraints, though! I just don't think this guy is doing it.

>I think it is very much overlooked, when we think out the script of what we are going to do as landscape designers, that we don't make our projects. We don't make our clients. ... That means a lot of the work is going to be stuff that we really don't want to do.

But one client with weird tastes doesn't give you an entire year's worth of projects. One will tell you she wants little evergreen corkscrews flanking the door. Another will insist that every foundation plant be evergreen. Another won't want trees in front of the house. Another won't like this tree or that shrub or anything that doesn't flower... Anyhow, my point is that the instructor is doing them no favors because they're only having experience with ONE set of odd tastes, not many. When I did web design work, I never had two clients who had the same quirk. Not once!

As for me, I'm not much of a client at all. I'm a perfectionist, and I want to be the primary designer in anything I do because then if it works, I feel more happy, and if it doesn't, I have no one to blame but myself--even if I got tons of advice, it was my fault for taking it or ignoring it when I shouldn't have. *g*

Saypoint & Laag, I am wondering why some of the principles being taught seem so regional. Move a couple of states South and the snow factor is no longer an issue. The rule about keeping trees out of the public area would earn a bad citizen grade where more sun means that shading both house and land reduces energy consumption and makes outdoor life possible. Is this local focus just the normal way that landscaping is taught?

Annie

mad gallica, I'm surprised about the NYBG classes. I've drooled over some of the course descriptions on the website, and I guess I assumed that they would be part of a high-caliber program. Thanks for the heads up.

reyesuela, I'm a her, not a him.

annieinaustin, I'm certain that if I had a situation where the house needed shading from the hot afternoon sun on the front side, that the instructor would agree that placing a tree there was the right thing. We did learn about sun angles at different times of year early in the program, and the "function" factor is a big part of his philosophy. I think that what he is saying is that if we do something outside of the basic rules, we need to be able to justify it with a reason. He states very emphatically that everything in the landscape must have a reason for being there, even if that reason is to have something nice to look at. He has also stated that we can do anything we want once we are out of his classroom, and expects us to.

I'm thinking that the strict rules are his way of keeping the red mulch, dwarf alberta spruce doorway sentinels, house-dwarfing trees, miniature wishing well in the front yard, and other cliched design elements out of our designs. You'd be surprised how many students who haven't been exposed to good design want to use these things, because it's all they know, like a lot of homeowners. Now, the whole class cracks up if someone uses one of the above elements, and there is usually a group groan when someone uses a Bradford Pear, Dwarf Euonymus or Barberry, or other questionable choice.

Also, we have worked on a number of projects that had real "clients". Aside from the projects assigned with specific goals attached, we did a re-design of a part of the campus where the old landscaping wasn't working, and just finished a design for another professor at the school who just had a new house built. We had to consider a windy hilltop location with a deer browse problem in the coldest part of the state, as well as an elevated rear deck, well head in the front yard, propane tank fill in the back yard, ledge, and the homeowners desires. The student whose design is chosen by the "client" will receive $100 for their efforts.

If you have not been through it, you can't understand it. How can someone reading a second hand desciption of a teacher with some particular preferences that he wants his students to follow conclude that he is a bad teacher?

It is no more a fact that what he likes is wrong than it is a fact that what he likes right. What is a fact is that parameters are set in the classroom to keep the focus on the particular lesson because when students over power the project with other concepts the whole point of the lesson can be undermined. I saw this happen on several occasions. Students introduced things that resolved problems in their projects which kept them from having to learn to deal with them using only the tools that they were allowed to.

It is not about the odd client that has weird tastes. Its about the project that has specific issues that are not basic planting composition issues. Things like specific planting buffer configurations in zoning ordinances or wetlands mitigation plantings that are defined in a wetlands protection by-law are no different than these biases introduced by the teacher. Then there are things that have nothing to do with plants at all. It is all about being forced to work outside your comfort zone to learn to assess, adapt, and improvise. Sometimes you can't work within your comfort zone. Look how many people started with high aspirations of being designers 30 years ago who are still riding around in Toyota pickups doing little plantings that they have to install themselves in order to get work. They tell themselves it is because they don't have big enough crews or the clients are duped by elitist snobs who know little about garden design. Look at the folks who are making good livings at designing landscapes and keeping their finger nails clean. The ones with the clean nails are doing the things that the ones with the dirty knees never learned to do, but refuse to believe that they needed to. It is not the odd job here and there that requires these skills once you go past plantscapes. It is the norm.

There is a difference between landscape design and planting design. Planting design is a part of landscape design. It is not the whole thing. If you want to do the whole thing, which not everybody does and there is nothing wrong with that, you must do things that are not just about horticulture and garden design. You can't do that if you are not forced into learning about them. It is like swimming. You can read about it all you want, but you have to practice it in order to do it and by avoiding it you are not practicing it.

Saypoint is not going to get the top of the line historic preservation redesign of some Fairfield mansion if she only can make and fill planting beds. No one doing the hiring is going to give the job to someone because she believes that she can deal with the other issues. The job will go to someone who can articulate an understanding of all of it. Fortunately, she is doing something about that.

In real life most of my enquiries are for bog standard "landscaping". 'curb appeal', 'low maintenance' and 'a garden full of colour' hits my ears far more often than "can you do me a garden that reflects a joyful mood" perhaps this instructor is teaching how to make a living. Follow certain conventions, and trust me people are way less adventurous in the garden than they are in the kitchen, and you will have a solid landscaping business. Occasionally someone will ask for something unique and you have to be prepared for this. After some years of building a reputation you may be able to say "Sorry, I only do mood gardens" but in the mean time it is the basics that will feed the dog.

Sorry, Saypoint! I read "Jo" and thought of "Jo" from "Bleak House." *G*

>If you have not been through it, you can't understand it. How can someone reading a second hand desciption of a teacher with some particular preferences that he wants his students to follow conclude that he is a bad teacher?

Because I see no indications here of a coherent philosophy. Random lists of preferences and pet peeves is just fine if you're designing for yourself--NOT fine if you're supposed to be teaching design in the abstract! Instructors who are wedded to a particular design philosophy are annoying, but at least they help one master that particular school of thought. But just saying "no trees higher than x feet more that the roof!"--that's silly. And depressing. It's a good way to make all your designs look like cookie-cutter new development. :-/

>What is a fact is that parameters are set in the classroom to keep the focus on the particular lesson because when students over power the project with other concepts the whole point of the lesson can be undermined.

Again, a given set of odd parameters are good for A LESSON--I totally agree with that! Not for two semesters' worth of work. By then, you're just recylcing the same solutions that got you an A last time--there is not thought or challenge. The teacher is NOT having the students work outside their comfort zone but inside of HIS. (Maybe that's why he's teaching...) And after a while, students get to know expectations of a teacher like that, and most stop thinking.

>If you want to do the whole thing, which not everybody does and there is nothing wrong with that, you must do things that are not just about horticulture and garden design. You can't do that if you are not forced into learning about them. It is like swimming.

That's my point exactly. I don't see how the teacher is teaching landscape design. He's turning it into a paint-by-numbers sort of formula. Rounded bushes at the foundation? Check. No trees in front of the house? Check. Informal design because EVERYONE lives informally these days? Check. He is REPLACING the design process with a set of cruddy rules so that virually all that is left is bed plantings. That is a large part of my point--he ISN'T teaching design but insensible checklists. He'd slap round bushes (highest at the corners of the house!) in front of a Bauhaus house or a Georgean mansion or a farm house indiscrimnately. That isn't design. That's a substitute for design. Good instructors should teach sensitivity to the site and the UNIQUE challenges and features it presents.

I'm not much of a "gardener"--and by that, I mean I don't really get a thrill out of having a special flower that no one else has or by the number of different kinds of plants that I have. Design is transcendant for me, and while individual plant choices are critical to making a design work, if you have a lousy design (or no design), all the awesome plants in the world won't fix that. Most people I've known who are fabulous GARDENERS actually had decidedly mediocre landscapes. It doesn't mean their choices don't give them pleasure--the collector look just isn't cohesive, though. That's why I'm annoyed at the teacher. I mean, he actually puts relatively few restrictions on your choice of individual plants to put in. But I revolt against such illogical and arbitrary restrictions applying equally to design in every case because I think good design can't be reduced into a simplistic checklist, like he's doing. This denial of complexity (or categorizing everything that doesn't fit in with his ideas as "bad") kills the landscaping element of design and makes it cookie-cutter. Your point is precisely why I have so many problems with this instructor. Say that Saypoint did get a redesign of a Fairfeild mansion on a 3-acre lot and she didn't have the intelligence and confidence to question her instructor's truths. Applying the instructor's methods, the result would be downright BIZARRE. That's why I dislike him and his "rules" so much.

>In real life most of my enquiries are for bog standard "landscaping". 'curb appeal', 'low maintenance' and 'a garden full of colour' hits my ears far more often than "can you do me a garden that reflects a joyful mood" perhaps this instructor is teaching how to make a living.

If he were teaching "bog standard "landscaping". 'curb appeal', 'low maintenance' and 'a garden full of colour'", I'd accept it as being practical. But he isn't. He's teaching what he THINKS is 'curb appeal,' and it's completely personal taste. I mean, I have personal taste, too, but that doesn't mean that I don't plant appropriately for my location even in my OWN yard. On my forested .5 acre in the dry and very high elevation mountains, I have a slightly rustic house, so my beds tend to be exuberant and informal and flow into the forest without any real demarcation lines. I'm really not terribly wild about the style, but it works well HERE. At my new house, with the overall landscaping plan that I just posted, I'm doing something almost completely opposite! I have a 1950s modern formal house on a 2-acre, lightly shaded lot halfway across the country, so I'm doing the Asian modernist formal thing there (which I happen to like much better!). If I had been hired to design them both, even if the owners had said "curb appeal" or "garden full of color," the results would have been WILDLY different because of the different needs of the different sites. I feel strongly that the instructor's idea of design works JUST fine for cookie-cutter, bland tract houses with small yards and many neighbors. (But so would other things...) But I don't think it goes beyond that. In that sense, I think he IS teaching for the "average" residential design job, though there are a number of other sets of "rules" that would work just as well. But I couldn't imagine being a landscaper and not finding doing *only* those sorts of jobs with such a set of rules demoralizing to the point of wondering why I chose the occupation in the first place.

And, laag, if you want to shred my plan (which is DEFINITELY unique), go right ahead. ;-) I've put my money where my mouth is!

I'd wash your money.

Saypoint,
Those rules are the same ones that came out of my college landscape design course waaaay back in the 19[mumblemumble]s. Point being, they are basic principles that have held sway for a long time, mainly because they work both functionally and aesthetically.

Barefoot states an age-old, universal principle regarding having to learn the fundamental rules and mastering them before you can "break" them. In other disciplines, such as the Japanese martial arts (which I have studied for some years), this is called "The bound foot is the free foot" -- meaning that we are programmed to a certain set of standards and rules until they become second nature. Once this is done, we are "freed" to do with them what we will, including streamlining and even altering some of their form.

As long as the functional foundation is not eroded away, what we build on top of it (variations in the way the principles are applied), our work will be sound.

I just googled placement of shade trees to satisfy my own curiosity. Most of the websites I checked out emphasize shading south and west windows and walls, as well as AC condensing units. A couple were in the Southwest. One actually discourages using trees that overhang the roof, citing damage to the house and clogged gutters as potential problems. Medium sized trees are mentioned repeatedly as shade trees, and at least one site advises against using very large trees close to the house, and suggest that on large lots they should be confined to the outer perimeter. At least one stated that the scale of large trees was inappropriate for most modern homes. So this addresses the issue of whether keeping trees to within 5-10 feet of the height of the house is reasonable.

On the issue of public space trees, I was taught to use trees off the ends of the house where they would not obstruct the view of the house. One site stated that if a house face south or west and required shading, that any trees should be limbed up to retain a clear view of the house.

Obviously, I did not do exhaustive research, but looked at about 20 or so websites, mostly those of universities and extension services. So I feel confident that there are good reasons for the way I've learned to treat trees. Too many homes, including my own, have enormous trees that dwarf the house, plunge entire sections of the property into fairly deep shade, not to mention the tree roots that make it very difficult to grow anything under them.

I have an ancient Sugar maple between my house and garage that provide welcome shade, but I can certainly see why my instructor says to leave them to the forest. Something half its size would have sufficed.

{{gwi:28167}}

The stuff you learned about positioning shade trees (for summer shading and winter light access) also sounds like it came right from my landscape design courses. Again, these "rules" are simple pragmatic principles.

Beyond that, we have to consider the distance that shrubs and trees are planted from a building or structure so that the building can be painted and maintained, branches from mature trees' overhanging branches don't rub or fall on the roof of the house or chimney, and large roots don't penetrate the foundation or cause structural damage.

When you studied shade tree placement, did you ever crunch numbers? It's been a while since I've done this, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if there are some mistakes somewhere, either in the math or in the assumptions, but here goes.

Worst case situation for the amount of shade an object casts is solar noon at the summer solstice. We are about at 45° latitude, so the solar angle at that point in time here is about 21.5°. Using trigonometry, the height of an object necessary to cast shade x ft away is h = x tan(21.5°).

x .... h
10 25
20 51
30 76
40 102
50 127

That's to shade a point on the ground. To shade something above the ground, you have to add that distance onto the height of the tree. So to shade the second story windows of a two story colonial, you either need some very big trees, or some mere big trees planted fairly close.

Mad_gallica, could you figure it out for 31º latitude in mid-August, when it is the hottest here? I am interested to find out if there is a mathematical basis for the advice we get.

Annie

I hope that my first post did not set the tone for this thread. I appreciate what reyesuela is saying, though he/she is saying it a bit stronger than I would (gotta be a she...would a guy use *g* that much? *g*). While I don't agree with some of the ideas that your professor has proposed, I am not ready to write him off as a bozo yet. It sounds like you have gotten a lot out of this program. I would be curious to see some landscapes that he has designed...assuming that he has worked in the trade for at least a little while.

Yea, I remember you posting about your sugar maple. I think that most people agree that it was a poor choice for that location, though I suppose that it could be said that it should have been cut down when it started getting too big.

- Brent

OK, from the Naval Observatory sun data for Austin, Tx, August, 11, 2006, at noon the sun will be 72.7° from the horizon.

First column is distance from the point, second column is how tall the object has to be to shade the point.

10 32.106303616
20 64.212607233
30 96.318910849
40 128.42521447
50 160.53151808

at 3:00 PM the sun will be much lower, at 53.7°

10 13.613350363
20 27.226700726
30 40.840051089
40 54.453401452
50 68.066751815

About ten years ago, my DH's division was transferred to Austin. They flew us all down for a long weekend to look the place over. I remember the municipalities all trying hard to push shade trees, and how very few trees were maturing taller than about 20 ft.

Yeah, Brent, you're causing a lot of trouble. :o)

In case you don't like my arbs, you should know that they were personally selected by your friend Gordon. So there.
*f*
That was a frown.

I know that the sun where I live is 72 degrees in summer and 27 degrees in winter. That's above the horizon, not fahrenheit. I can't remember if there was a formula, have to look at my notes.

Hey, I definitely agee about there being bad places to put huge trees--and some lots shouldn't have any trees at all. But when I drive down the streets of gorgeously mature old neighborhoods, I can't think of a one that meets those requirements. Like I said, those rules work fine for tiny suburban lots (and I can't think of the number of homeowners I've seen put a tree EXACTLY in front of the front door from the street in the middle of an otherwise empty lot!), but there are a lot of tree species that don't cause problems (unless you put them in front of the DOOR, of course *rolls eyes*). For example, a Norway maple 15' from the front of the house is a nightmare waiting to happen, but a post oak or sycamore in the same place might be great--while a fir might be far worse. Treating all trees as if all that matters is their height is...a problem. Your sugar maple is a perfect example. Its height isn't nearly the issue that its density and DARKNESS is. It also is way too close to the ground to be a classic "shade tree"--that is, a tree that doesn't just cast shade but that makes the space under it a delightful outdoor retreat, just waiting for the lemonade and the chairs. Those are also more pyramidal or streading than globe-shaped.

I have yet to have gone through a neighborhood populated with only stubby trees and gone, "Oh, what a lovely place to live!" Actually, I prefer needing to cut down a couple of poorly planned trees than living in a neighborhood that might be 75 years old but still looks rawly new.

I think this relates to the discussion of age, really. Maybe it's just a personal thing, but I've always felt that no landscape looks complete until it looks like it's always been there. And I don't think this is possible if the tallest tree you plant is 25' tall.

And yes, Brent, it's all your fault! *g* (And I am a woman.)

I think I get so hot under the collar because I see SO many landscapers bash this or that and them crank out cookie-cutter, "Oh, look, it was designed in X year!" landscapes with absolutely NO personality, applying the same banal solutions to very different sites over and over again. Have you seen Landscaper's Challenge on HGTV? That's better than most of the Curb Appeal episodes (with , yes, real landscapers), but still, there's not one design in ten that I get excited about, going, "That works!" I don't even care if I don't care for the particulars of the design--it just has to relate to the needs of the space and have some sense that a person created, not a machine. :-/ That's what gets me, too--that so many landscapers decorate to their taste at least 80%, leaving less than 20% of responsiveness to the site and the personalities of the clients (assuming that the clients have personalities...). In the neighborhood where I grew up, my favorite landscapes weren't the professional ones (which all looked the same) but those that the owners labored over and really made into a true statement, whatever it was. One was a surprisingly lush desert xeriscape with all native plants. Another had a very understated oaks-surrounded-by-jasmine-curved-beds and simple evergreen foundation planting. Another had broad "natural area" beds with yaupon that screened the front windows from the street and made a nice area to talk bewteen as you got to the door. Another had a sunny central bed that always overflowed with bright annuals and featued--I kid you not--a wheelbarrow and an antique plow as the centerpoints. Each had a style--none of them MY style, but still--and they worked. You might say, "Oh, how very gauche--a planted wheelbarrow!" But it looked good when she did it because it created exactly the mood she wanted, and then she went with it. Sure, there were as many that horribly didn't work as those that did (like the woman who has at least 150 garden ornaments in her backyard), but the ones that did REALLY worked and had life and personality. And I don't think even one of them would have fit that checklist. (Actually, the one with the wheelbarrow might have!)

Not that you need anything but ordinary and banal when you're being asked to do "color" and "curb appeal", anyhow...

saypoint,
Just one basic point point I wish to stress having just come from a meeting where a costly mistake was made. Hardscape, softscape, height of trees, types of shrubs mean nothing in a landscape plan if the basic soil types, land and drainage have not been addressed properly. These issues are the guts of a design. Pay very close attention to those 'rules' which govern them when you take that class.

Thanks, Nandina, I'm looking forward to the construction course, I've heard from some other students that it was a good class, and I've had the instructor before for woody plants, and I know how thorough he is.

One the subject of the too big sugar maple, it's really not low to the ground, there is a patio under it.

{{gwi:28168}}

It's still oppressive--though you've certainly made good use of the space! If there was something that was a LOT less dense and started branching 20' off the ground, it would work better there, even if it was equally tall.

I really like the patio, though. *g* I have a weakness for patios. And I also lite the trees at the front of the lot. In front of the house. Because I'm just difficult like that.

With that picture of your patio I can just see the homeowners in new developments saying "Darn you and all that luscious shade (and your little dog, too)!"

*g* (borrowing)
Patty

*g* isn't mine. It's just web-talk! Faster than a smiley!

Thank you for the shade numbers, Mad_gallica. It looks like one of the various previous owners put a Live Oak, now almost 20 feet-tall, in the right place near the SW corner of the house.

But there's also an Arizona Ash on the other end of the house that is probably not so useful. Ashes were planted for quick growth, but they have a short life span. I would love to take it down and put a better, smaller tree in this area. Perhaps with your numbers I can convince my husband [AKA The Druid] to let me kill one of his AZ Ashes.

Maybe they didn't show you the whole city? There are lots of very tall trees in older, Central Austin, and the magnolias are magnificent there right now. But you don't see much besides but hunkered-down, starved-looking live oaks, scrub, and "cedar"/juniper out where houses are being built now. As you can guess, coming here from Illinois was quite an adjustment.

As to the other posts in the "Public Space Design" discussion... a landscape manual that I have is "Landscaping Your Home", by Wm R Nelson Jr. It was used in colleges for years, also used for Master Gardener classes up to the early 90's at least. This book reiterates many of the same rules that Saypoint's teacher used. Why are certain rules about what is allowed in the public space so incredibly annoying? I'm not so sure it's just our tendency to resent rules in general. It seems there is something skewed about the underlying philosophy that generated these rules. I've been rereading this book and rereading this thread and the "Critique" one and am still trying to figure it out.

Annie

I just realized something..."public space"...when I first saw the thread title I thought it was about designing parks, churches, schools, and stuff like that. I guess the term "public space" is used to apply to front yards. hmmm...I thought that I owned that space! Maybe the notion that the front yard is "public" and the backyard is "private" is the idea that is not current.

- Brent

In my community college hort. dept, there were 2 LAs and one LD in the design portion. The LAs taught like saypoints instructor, and laag's experience. I've mentioned one before - 'She Who Rules The Classroom.' As it turns out, I got a lot more from her than I did from the free form LD. The LD let everything go, and offered very little critique. The 'She' instructor had many rules (not more than 5 shrubs and two groundcovers for the entire property, and my personal favorite- no even numbers on the plant list) and I carried away a lot more.

No, I don't limit myself to that few shrubs, but I do see that I do tend to confuse a design with too much variety. 'She' lives on in my head, helping me to critique my own work.

So I am on the 'learn to play by their rules for now' side of this discussion. Learn to work inside the box before you worry about what's outside. Most folks (clients) are pretty happy with the box. Treasure the one's who want to peek outside with you.

creatrix: "Most folks (clients) are pretty happy with the box."
People want to keep up with the Jones'--and to most people this means having exactly what the Jones' have.

annieinaustin: "Why are certain rules about what is allowed in the public space so incredibly annoying?" --only to those who want something different than anyone else.
Public space "rules" are there to make the public comfortable, and most people are uncomfortable with things that are different.

For instance that tall sugar maple shown above. People don't always build their homes in an empty field, yet the thought of being near a "forest-sized" tree make most people uncomfortable.
Scale in the human landscape is based on humans.
(Personally, I love the tree!)

>The LD let everything go, and offered very little critique. The 'She' instructor had many rules (not more than 5 shrubs and two groundcovers for the entire property, and my personal favorite- no even numbers on the plant list) and I carried away a lot more.

I think both are bad! Another part of my sensitivity to this issue is being a novelist who has worked with many critique partners before finding my ideal group. Guess what? My best critique partners don't write like me and don't have the same writing philosophy that I do. (Only one of us was pubbed when the journey began--now all but one of us is.) However, we "get" what other people are trying to do, and instead of arbitrarily imposing ourselves upon them, we try to make be the strongest and best at what they are doing. Anything else is either laziness or unbounded egotism, the former doesn't help at all and the latter only helps in making people poor clones of yourself (if they don't drop you to the curb as they should).

>only to those who want something different than anyone else.

Or at least EVERYONE else. *g*

>Public space "rules" are there to make the public comfortable, and most people are uncomfortable with things that are different.

I think the public is comfortable with things that fit and work in their context. (Else I wouldn't sell so well...) The public is SATISFIED with banality in many aspects of their lives, landscape design being toward the top of the list. But I've never heard a person oooh and aaah over an ordinary landscape or book--unless it was a case of people's personal relationship to the book or landscape rendering them blind. People like banality only when they don't know the alternative.

I think that there is an assumption that we are being taught to do simple, safe, and uninspired design as the end product. It is not that way at all. It is a stage in learning that we go through that is followed by more sophisticated concepts and ideas.

I'll use what I expect is the novelist's equivelent, although writing is obviously not a strong point *f* of mine. When the novelist was first learning the basics of writing, the concepts of simple sentences and other very basic elements of writing were introduced. If at that time the aspiring novelist and other classmates were to have gone off on a Dickens-like adventure in sentence writing, the teacher would probably be very frustrated because the basic concepts were not being focused upon. They may have been addressed, but it is important to strip it down to the basic in order to know that the student understands it. The second grader writes a sentence, but may have difficulty underlining the subject and the verb. If the teacher did not have the student underline those, the teacher does not really know if the child understands it despite the fact that the student used a subject and verb. When these subject/verb lessons are taught, the sentences are very simple at the beginning.

It is no different in landscape design. One difference might be that we are not taught these things from a young age in the school system. When you start in a design program you come in with the belief that you are above the basics. The first thing that they do is kick the ladder out from underneath you and start as if you know nothing because many of us do know nothing about the basics. Then they focus you on the basics by limiting the distractions of other elements (simple sentence - underline subject, underline verb). Later more is added (adverbs and adjectives) and it builds up from a strong foundation.

I disagree with your assessment of your writing ability Andrew but I agree with the rest of it.
I we are to think of landscape design as an art we must think of it not as passion but as an expression of passion, just like any other art. In its raw form passion is incomprehensible and needs a technique to enable understanding. The frustrated artist laments that he has a picture/story/whatever, in his head but just can't get it down. Even a stream of consciousness poet like Allen Ginsberg had the discipline to edit. Can you tell the difference between Keth Jarrett and another piano player without Jarrett's training? Of course the art of the novel
is not in the arrangement of words but what those words say but you need the words to be arranged otherwise nobody knows what you are trying to say.
Jo is following a path that I would recommend: she obviously has the passion for the subject, she studies that subject both privately and in a formal classroom situation, she practices what she has learned and offers it to her peers for critique.

So Jarrett had to learn "Snug as A Bug in A Rug" and "The Pet Shop".

As has been said, it is important to learn the basics. Then freedom with expression can be exercised with success rather than failure.
To expand on the analogies: What has always puzzled me is the great number of classicly trained violinists who find it difficult to improvise on a melody; they literally can't play without written music to look at. I think they could do it if they allowed themselves room for failure. Yes, when you improvise on the spot, you *will* play a wrong note, but you're always only 1/2 a step from a right note. When they finally get over that mental block, they can really rip because they have all the basic tools literally at their fingertips, and finely developed skills will always trump front porch learned bravado in the end.

>When the novelist was first learning the basics of writing, the concepts of simple sentences and other very basic elements of writing were introduced. If at that time the aspiring novelist and other classmates were to have gone off on a Dickens-like adventure in sentence writing, the teacher would probably be very frustrated because the basic concepts were not being focused upon.

Those kind of details are like learning what grows in what zone, the heights and names of plants, and their preferences for sun and water. Which has nothing at all to do with DESIGN but still must be understood before you can make a good one.

But what I see instead is like an instructor coming in and saying that the only correct kind of writing is romance because it sells twice as much as any other kind of book...or literary bildungsroman because it's the only "right" kind of writing that any writer who takes himself seriously should write...or thrillers because they're simply more interesting.

Instead, a great teacher will introduce universal principles (like point of view, classic narrative structures, the importance of character development, etc., etc.) and then explain how this might apply with different sorts of voices to all sorts of different kinds of books through a series of carefully controlled introductions. (I must admit that I never had that advantage. I taught myself to write, the only input being from a mutual-support critique group. Even given that kind of support, the very best that could be expected of 98% of people is a thoroughly mediocre story about nothing much because few people actually have stories to tell, and teaching can refine what one has but can't create inspiration where none exists.)

So this ideal instructor might say, "Romances focus on a central love story between a man and a woman who go through trials but have a happy ending." He shouldn't say this is the ONLY way to write a good book or a commercial book--merely one way. In the same way, another might say, "A formal garden is build around geometry and symmetry, usually with an emphasis on the shape and structure of plants rather than blooms." Then, just as you might explain what historical, contemporary, paranormal, inspirational, and suspense means in terms of romance, you might go into different types of formal gardens--regional themes (a Spanish/Moorish courtyard garden looks very different from a Zen-inspired Japanese formal garden) and temporal ones (traditional versus modern). And then make assignments accordingly and grade the student's accomplishment in terms of the ideals of the style.

Of course, writing is VERY different from landscape design in that a truly fabulous landscape designer should be the master of multiple forms (at least in my opinion *G*), while the fabulous writer tends to not only focus upon a single genre or theme but to develop an extraordinarily effective style or voice within that theme and generally refines it rather than deviates from it.

I think the issue is that the instructor and I have very different ideas of what should constitute "the basics." He belives it to be a particular aesthetic, though a reasonable loose one, while I think that it should consist of more abstract principles.

But both laag and I agree on the importance of imposed limitations and exercises!

To use the writing analogy, imagine a writing class where 80% of the students have never read a truly well-written book, 75% are not really interested in a Pulitzer, they just want to make money off of writing, 40% write at a sixth grade level, and 20% barely speak English. This is not to demean the students, they just don't have the skills or experience, and that's why they are here to learn.

Most people who come to an advanced writing class learned to read and write as children. They have read countless books, and may have tried writing on their own. Not so with landscape design. Some students may have a keen enough interest to read and study independently, some may have gardens of their own to experiment in, but how many opportunities does the average person have to landscape a property? A handful, if they move a lot. Or travel to see public gardens outside their own area?

Imagine the chaos if class exercises in writing were not fairly narrow in scope, and with "rules" to follow.

A classical sonnet has a specific rhyme scheme, meter, number of lines. It is an arbitrary structure. There's nothing magical about it, and students attempting the structure will rarely produce anything but tedious pap. The structure is so bare that you must know the weight and flavor of every syllable, every internal rhyme or off-rhyme. It forces the writer to attend to the craft, the bare-bones design function of sound, syllable, word, meaning.

A design teacher who sets a structure, however arbitrary, may or may not be a "bad" teacher. To tree, or not to tree, in the public space if that is the question is no more arbitrary than 14 lines of iambic pentameter.

Wellspring

There is a very big leap from the structure of the classroom to the reality of the real world......I believe this is the point Andrew is attempting to make. Having been through two separate design curriculums, I do not find Jo's instructors to be off base at all. And I would certainly not presume to label them "bad".

The analogy to writing is rather sound - you are learning the fundamentals, the stepping stones to which the creative input is then applied. Without the stones, the foundation is shaky and the entire construction is at risk for failure. Do some of these stones seem arbitrary? Yes and an argument can be made that they are indeed but they are just part of the fabric that forms the foundation. Will Jo adhere to them religiously once she is out on her own and practicing her craft? Maybe not always, but I'll guarantee you she will give them consideration, which in the end is the entire intent.

As has been brought up in discussion on this forum countless times, it is the context in which things are applied that governs their usage. Absolutes are pretty much nonexistant, the things of theory, not practice. But to discount them entirely is to misunderstand the intent of the instructor. Of course there will be personal biases in instructional techniques - instructors of any level are only human and will have justifiable (to them, anyway) reasons why these biases exist. Some of them are very obvious from a practical standpoint, some seem on the surface to be pointless and extremely arbitrary, but the actual practicing of the craft will often turn up the reasons behind them - the lightbulb moment when you finally figure out that the old coot behind the podium or desk did indeed know his stuff.

An education in design is not going to ensure that the graduate will emerge a skilled, creative designer. The student will get from it what they put into it - Jo obviously has the right attitude in her attention to detail, the amount of effort she has devoted to her studies and most importantly, that questioning attitude that seeks to understand the "whys" behind the dogma. That she will be a success seems at this point, at least to me, pretty much a given.

With very few exceptions (notably our amazingly precocious friend Audric), landscape design is not the pursuit of the very young. Those who feel inclined to follow this course of study are more often than not mature students and that maturity and life experience brings with it an ability to evaluate and digest what is offered in the way of instruction and 'rules' and glean from it what is significant and what has been put forth just to get one thinking in a different direction. And both have equal value.

>To use the writing analogy, imagine a writing class where 80% of the students have never read a truly well-written book, 75% are not really interested in a Pulitzer, they just want to make money off of writing, 40% write at a sixth grade level, and 20% barely speak English. This is not to demean the students, they just don't have the skills or experience, and that's why they are here to learn.

Flunk 'em. If they aren't passionate readers, they'll never be even decent writers.

I guess that would mean in my world, only people who have enjoyed gardens and have mucked around in them and have some gut instinct as to what looks good would become landscape designers. But maybe more designs would be inspiring then...

But I see what you're saying. And it works, if you see landscape design as something that's at least as much a trade as an art, at least for most people.

Most writers are not published until they reach middle age, and then it is rarely financially viable enough for them to stop working in their day job because they just don't have the appeal. So I suppose my methods would quite thoughtly decimate the number of landscape designers and would leave all those who just want "a pretty yard" with no where to go. *g* It's the equivelent, I think, not of teaching people to write novels but in teaching them to "write" when most will end up crafting business letters or something of that sort.

I concede that your instructor's methods will produce a number of competant designers who will fulfill all the needs of "curb appeal." It just isn't targeted for the 1 in 100 who will create something that will bowl anyone over.

*shrugs* But I liked your design.

Then why go to school at all?

You missed my point completely, reyesuela. If landscape design were taught starting in kindergarten the way reading and writing were, we'd be seeing something much different at the college level.

We wouldn't have doctors, either, I guess, if we followed your logic, because the students wouldn't be able to do unassisted brain surgery in their first year or two of med school. Flunk 'em. If they haven't learned on their own to repair an aneurysm by now, they'll never make decent surgeons.

>Then why go to school at all?

Actually, I think an excellent apprenticeship would be much more effective than a school. But in the context of a school, just because you've hung around gardens and mucked about in gardens doesn't mean you don't have a great deal to learn. A great program can take interest and aesthetic instinct and hone it into something impressive. If you don't have either, though, you become one of the "designers" who plants public berms with little rows of violas backed by the little gum-drop shrubs and who makes the oh-so-correct and oh-so-lackluster residential "curb appeal" designs rather than reacting to the site with confidence and, yes, often unorthodoxy that results in an organic, cohesive garden that simply WORKS, whether or not all checkboxes are filled.

The checkboxes are like the "writing programs" that tell writers how many scenes and pages per chapter, how many characters, when the Inciting Moment and Crossing the Threshold and Returning With the Elixir should take place. It's all noise and nonsense. Things should happen as they should happen for your book, your story, your tone, your objective to be fulfilled. If people can't string two sentences together, the write-by-numbers type of plans can make them better than they were. But they will never, ever be good.

>We wouldn't have doctors, either, I guess, if we followed your logic, because the students wouldn't be able to do unassisted brain surgery in their first year or two of med school. Flunk 'em. If they haven't learned on their own to repair an aneurysm by now, they'll never make decent surgeons.

Um. No. If they didn't take AP Chem and Bio in high school--or at least one of the two--flunk 'em. If they haven't had 4 years of high school math, don't let them in. Look skeptically at them if they didn't have AP Calc. If they can't do well of the MCAT, don't admit them. If they can't tell a liver from a kidney, they don't have any business there.

What I'm talking about isn't brain surgery. It's the FOUNDATION for success in an ARTISTIC endeavour. If it is a trade, then fine, forget any aesthetic element and pull out the checklists and "design" away! But if it's to be more than that, there are more requirements for success in students than a pulse and a willingness to work hard.

Fiction writing is not taught in K-12 school. Sure, you learn aobut grammar and setences,a nd sometimes you're told to "write a story about...", but it is never taught. (That's like saying, "Draw a pretty flower with your crayons!" and calling it garden design.) At some level, it can't be taught. It can be guided, but a good eye cannot just handed to a student--he can't just study and memorize everything he needs to know and then be good at it, magically. Saying that you can teach good landscape design to someone who doesn't examine gardens and appreciate them is like saying you can "teach" a person to write a good novel who's never read a book. Can't be done. You can teach them to write something that LOOKS like a novel, but it won't hold together, and it certainly won't be good. But if all people want is something that LOOKS like design, then I suppose it doesn't much matter.

Only 1 out of 100 manuscripts is ever published through a reputable publisher, and though that doesn't mean that all published books are good, there is a quality control of the actual product that makes degrees and university credits quite unimportant. Landscape design has no such mechanism, especially as readers are far, far, far more savvvy than people looking for design. (People read good books all the time and so want more. People don't see great landscaping all the time and so tend to want much less.) You make your profs happy and get you degree and poof! You're a designer! Doesn't matter if your designs are dull, uninspired, and frankly mechanical. You have the degree! Which makes actual GOOD design--not design that doesn't break any rules but GOOD design--something incredibly rare.

Just at the point where this lady is about to royally p*ss me off she says "Actually, I think an excellent apprenticeship would be much more effective than a school." and I agree with this both for writers and landscape designers.

When you apprentice, the person you apprentice under will have biased views and will influence you more greatly than a professor teaching amongst other professors with differing views.

That makes no sense in supporting the earlier notion that a professor with biases stifles creativity. What makes more sense. Have Picaso study exclusively under Leonardo DaVinci or study Leonardo amongst all of the other greats. I'm pretty sure he did one of those. Obviously, it screwed him up so bad that he has arms growing out of ears, but it did not stifle his creativity. Would we have ever heard of him, if he followed but one master?

I was more or less an apprentice under my father. We did certain things. I went and studied and clashed under other instructors only to find that I added to my earlier learning in the end. I also gained an understanding of the value of cutting out little pieces of black and white paper and using glue sticks while weaving a tapestry of obscenities under my breath at 33 years old and after designing more landscapes than that professor ever will.

Reyesuela, you don't understand this anymore than I understand novel writing. I'm going to stop before I damage the wall or my skull from this repeated banging of one against the other.

Reyesuela, are you simply trying to say that without innate talent one cant hope to be a great writer or a great landscape designer?

Maybe so, but whats that got to do with laags assertion that the basics are needed as the foundation of good landscape design?

You have talent with words, but I got lost in your logic somewhere in the middle of your last post, if not before, and you stray from the point. Its like a politician defending his pork project. Theres just enough truth to reassure the audience, and the damaging factors are covered in mud.

>When you apprentice, the person you apprentice under will have biased views and will influence you more greatly than a professor teaching amongst other professors with differing views.

That's why a person should choose whom they apprentice with very, very carefully! It's actually easier than checking out the prejudices of every single instructor and then hoping you get enough class time with the good ones.

> Have Picaso study exclusively under Leonardo DaVinci or study Leonardo amongst all of the other greats.

Um. Excellent painting is taught and has always been taught through studio/atelier systems. It is only now that urinals on the wall are "art" that universities have become transcendant (THAT can be taught through classes!), which is why people who graduate from university programs in art can almost never draw to save their lives--and why people who graduate majoring in writing can't write to save their lives. An apprenticeships doesn't make the students just like the masters, or else Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and all the rest would have been no better than their own masters. They were taught good fundamentals and HOW to pursue excellence, and so they outstripped those who taught them because of a combination of excellent teaching, personal application, and innate gifts.

>Reyesuela, are you simply trying to say that without innate talent one cant hope to be a great writer or a great landscape designer?

Maro, are you simply trying to say that without innate talent one can be a great basketball player? Of course I'm saying that! It's true in EVERY endeavor, only more true in ones that involve greater (physical or mental) freedom. In fact, I'm saying that without some level of innate talent, one can't hope to be even a passable landcape architect or writer. I could never, ever be a decent basketball player, not with thousands of hours of personal training and thousands more training. I'm short. I have short legs even for my height. My hand-eye coordination is little better than disasterous. Sure, I'm pretty fit--I can squat more than most men can--but I'm incredibly slow over short distances, and years in track (working incredibly hard) taught me that my short legs and Barbie-doll figure just aren't going to move very fast and that my only hope is sheer endurance over a long race, during which time I can climb up from the very back to, at best, mid-pack.

>Maybe so, but whats that got to do with laags assertion that the basics are needed as the foundation of good landscape design?

My argument is with his definition of the word "basics." I believe that that instructor's version of "the basics" will turn an unholy mess into something that is bland but palatable. However, they aren't REALLY "basics," just things that SOME good designs have in common. If you are confused, it's because you aren't following this point, not because of what I said.

"Basics" ought to be fundamental, inviolable truths. For example, "don't plant impatiens in full sun." (In writing, that would be like having good spelling--but not exactly, because many authors can't spell at all but have great assistants, or they revise many times--as I do, or the copy editors catch their mistakes.) Or "in a design centered around a building, provide easy, intuitive access to the main entrance without any confusion about where a person should go." Or even "don't stick bushes bordering a path that needs to be shoveled in the winter." ("Don't tease the reader by setting up an unfulfilled situation," or "don't throw in unnecessary description," or whatever.)

But saying that no trees should be much taller than the roof of the house because it will overshadow the house would be like saying that one should not write in the first person because then you can never tell what the other characters are thinking in a direct way. That's not a basic. That's a personal preference and a frequent trait overgeneralized into a rule. A 40' weeping willow would look VERY different than a 40' Norway maple, and in some places where the second would be terrible, the former would be just perfect. In some stories, you WANT the immediacy of a first-person narrator and that narrator's ignorance of other events and points of view. Yes, it is limiting. Yes, it is much less common than all the various third person points of view. But sometimes, it WORKS--much better than third person does, in fact.

The real fundamentals in landscape design can'te be reduced to a long checklist. They are in understanding how lines, texture, scale, color, balance, form, and rhythm interact to create a particular mood or effect, in harmony with whatever type of space you wish to design. Notice the lack of easy checklist here? Similarly, the TRUE fundamentals in writing are in understanding the interactions of sound and sense, rhythm and meaning, mood, tone, texture, depth, honesty, physchological truth, suspense, plot flow, in harmony with whatever type of book (be it horror or a literary exploration of one's navel *g*) one wishes to create. I am inherently a risk-taker in those sorts of things, and it always takes me a number of tries to get things just right. But attempting the spectacular and eventually coming close is better to me than attempting the mundane and succeeding on the first try. Success is...incredible. When someone reads your book and then says, "I loved it! It was so...." and then rattles off a list of adjectives that were PRECISELY what you wanted readers to get from the book, it's a wonderful experience. Or when you write a line that is in no way emphasized over any other line in the book but you know, as the writer, that's the key to the entire story and then a reviewer quotes it word for word as THE key moment of psychological insight...then you know you've done it. It's worked. You have reached down into their guts and communicated with people on a level that is deeper than words or conscious thought so that they simply *understand*. (Not everyone will understand everything you write or design at such a visceral level, but that's fine. Not all human beings are made the same. You just have to reach enough.) But if people say, "Oh, it was nice," or "Oh, it was interesting," that's nothing. And write-by-number or design-by-number will get you...nice. And nice and not-nice aren't all that far apart with compared with wonderful.

I will concede that many people who enter landscape design, like many of the people who were in the one creative writing prose class I ever took, will never be able to handle the kind of freedom I'm talking about because they don't have the ability to understand--or really, to FEEL--what is neceassary to create the effect that is desired. In that case, a huge checklist of rules that leave little more than plant selection left (just like a huge checklist on how to write a story leaves little to do but fill in the blanks with the particulars of your chacters and their situation) will have a BETTER result than having no checklist for MOST people. But the result won't be great. Great design (or writing) doesn't come from checklists of common traits or "take one from column A, one from column B" type of planning.

So anything that smacks of substituting a true understanding of what one it trying to do with a list of rules is something I will have a big problem with. I'm not saying characters should be without motivation. Nor am I saying that tall shrubs at the corners of the house don't look good only many houses. I'm just saying that one-size-fits-all fits very few excellently.

However, recognition of tendencies is fine beause it gives one more tools in one's toolbox at first until one gains an easy, unconsious ability to weild all the tools one has at hand. "If you want to make a house seem longer, horizontal lines help." "If you want to make action feel real to a reader, you can put in sensory and visceral reactions and focus your prose on a single point." Notice how neither says, "You should always ass horizontal lines to two-story houses" OR "You should have at least one action scene per book, and you should make sure to mention smell and taste in it." THAT is the difference I'm talking about. Saying "always" instead of "it's sometimes helpful to..." is a huge problem. It is determining the outcome almost by default, handing you a framing hammer when you might need a sledgehammer or a tackhammer instead. It is insensitive to the unique needs of a situation, replacing thought and understanding with rules of thumb that are almost always okay but, taken together, almost never really good.

I'm surprised that laag is so hostile to the idea. After all, what I'm saying is just another form of "it depends", except I'm emphasizing the supremacy of the goal over the answer rather than emphasizing the variability of the answer itself. Any time you replace "it depends" with "it should be this way," you'd better have a DARNED good reason. I think Andrew might think it's good to start with "it should be this way" and gradually introduce "it depends," but I feel like the attitude from the beginning would be much better if instructors said instead, "here's a tool box" (instead of a rule), and when you present them with a design that they reply, "justify it"--not, "did you follow my list of ways things must be?" but "WHY did you do EVERYTHING?"

That's also more helpful because then the instructor could respond, "Oh, I see that you're trying to make a forest garden, but I think that hybrid tulips would be a bad choice for your full-sun clearing in that case because they looks so artificial. How about species tulips instead? They also are more reliable over multiple years and some will even naturalize." Or whatever. Instead of going, "Oh! You broke Rule #23! You have an even number of tulips. Five points off," he'd actually be improving DESIGN.

I think my mistake, aside from posting this topic at all, was in calling the teacher's instructions to us "rules". I should have called them "instructions", which means he wanted us to carry out the design exercises in a particular way, rather than laying down inviolable rules to carried in our hearts forever.

In the critiques of our designs, there were always suggestions of how something might have been done better, always with a reason why another way might have been better. I can see now that the instructions we had for our work were meant to prevent us from making some of the most common design mistakes. Limiting us in this way freed us to concentrate on the principles while wading through a mind-boggling selection of possible plant choices and an array of site conditions. It was great practice, which is what exercises are, after all.

In the end, let's face it: there are only a handful of truly visionary landscape designers in a generation, the rest of us have to do the best we can with what we've got. Same goes for writers, reyeseula. I hope your readers and critics are more forgiving of your imperfection than you are of everyone else's.

You are a novel writer.

... and there goes my wall.

I'm not interested in your writing career, Reyesuela, nor do I care how you felt about a particular critic's comments on your work. Superfluous detail.

Thank you, Saypoint, for your post. And to others, thank you for your persistance and patience. It's like the boy happily digging in the manure pile because "There has to be a pony in there somewhere." There's an answer here, and readers can draw their own conclusions.

As for me, I believe in discipline. "Wax on. Wax off, Daniel-san." Learn the basics. And get the basics from someone who knows, not someone who thinks she knows.

Wellspring

'Cuz you know, a degree is everything. And, Wellspring, I was answering a question--by someone else. You didn't need to read.

The most interesting thing, I think, is that when I actually googled to test several declarations that Saypoint's prof's Rules WERE The Rules, I found that it wasn't the case at all. (Hey, I didn't remember them as Rules from the textbooks I read, either, but I was--mistaken;y, it turns out--giving others the benefit of the doubt that their recollection was better than mine.) I discovered that, in fact, every source *I* could find gave the "rules" as TOOLS to create a certain effect. "If a house looks too tall, you can create sloping lines away from fromt he house through planting trees and bushes of increasingly smaller sizes from the corner." True. A good tool to have. "To create a sense of width, go horizontal." True. A good tool to have. "Big bushes at the entrance can be a safety concern." True. Good tool to have. "Putting taller plantings at the ends of a house will make a house look taller." True. Good tool to have.

Interestingly, nowhere did anyone claim that there is a checklist, suitable for all sites, that includes these sorts of proscriptions as Universal Rules For Design. So apparently, either Saypoint is misrepresenting the instructor (which I doubt since she's been making As in the class), or the instructor is a bit odd himself and is translating not a few of his favorite TOOLS into RULES. (He can't turn them ALL into rules because he'd end up directly contradicting himself. Now, that would be pretty interesting...)

I never argued that they weren't tools. And I think tools are important. But I haven't found a single instance in which, outside of Saypoint's representation, they are given as rules. So perhaps that's why the only arguments I've gotten against disliking the instructor's silly, insensible Rules is "you have to learn THE BASICS," without a single explanation as to why something so illogical as a silly set of rules would be a basic in the first place, nor a single shred of evidence beyond, "I think I remember something like that..."

That's because they aren't rules. People either aren't remembering what their instructors actually taught them in their first- and second-year classes because it's been so long (assuming there aren't hundreds of clones of this one particular instructor running around) and since it sounds vaguely familiar they are defending the instructor without recalling exactly what was really taught...or they just have a gut feeling that I don't like The Basics and they do and so are attacking it. (Which is utterly untrue.)

And laag, if you aren't responding...don't respond. Going around singing "I'm ignoring you! LALALALA!" with your fingers in your ears is silly and childish.

Ah, the denouement! I finally get your point, Reyesuela, and it is a good point!

I guess we can't help being what we "are". For Reyesuela, sometimes her posts read like chapters in a novel. But most of us need the denouement at the end of the novel to really understand the characters' motivation and some of the plot twists; "Aha... so that's why Sally wanted to run away and join the circus! And Mr. Jones is really her father!"

This thread is good fun.

Patty

One last time!

These are rules that the teacher (that one and only teacher) has given in a controlled situation (Saypoints classroom) to direct the students to work with a minimum set of "tools" in order to focus on a narrow area of design concepts without being distracted by other design concepts.

It is like an archeologic dig. You have to cordon off small pieces of the site and sift through every detail of it before you move to the next selected area. If you let the untrained into the site, they approach it willy-nilly or millie-vannilie.

The made up BS rules are what the teacher uses to cordon off a portion of the site.

... there goes my head.