TOOLBOX / BSLA
what this tool might be?” She gets it, “It’s
a pencil sharpener!” “Right—also called a
pencil pointer because it points rather than
sharpens pencils.” We refer back to the plan
with its various line types. I look into their
faces and see the wheels are turning. We
talk about how various points can create
different kinds of lines and marks. Who
knew a pencil could have such personality?
We move on to the eraser shield. The two
students who studied this call it a “shape
maker” and describe how you can use a
pencil to trace the shapes that have been
drilled into the metal plate to put symbols
on your plans. Everyone agrees. I hear
someone say “Theirs was easy!” Nods of
agreement all around.
“Now wait a minute,” I say. “Let’s turn the
shape maker sideways and look at how
deep it is. Do you think the metal plate is
deep enough to catch a pencil and keep
it moving around the edge of the shape
without jumping out?” The theorists realize
they have missed something. I pull up the
plan for Scarboro Pond again and lay the
eraser shield on the plan. “Say you just
finished drawing this plan for a client and
you notice a mistake. You need to erase
it—but you don’t want to lose all the details
around the mistake. How could you use this
tool to protect the good lines and get rid of
the bad?” They get it! I tell them that their
“shape maker” is an “eraser shield,” but that
their logic is spot on. According to their
theory, shape making was accomplished
by adding lines when in truth their “shape
maker” makes shapes by removing lines.
As students marvel at this remarkable
invention, a raspy voice cuts through the
buzz, “It’s like everything in this design
office goes together—like really goes together.
It’s like a kitchen with all the tools and
appliances… and all the people who worked
here are like the cooks and their plans are
like the recipes —not for cookies, but for
parks.” Everyone studies him and nods, and
then almost in unison, “That is SO cool!”
This is how the design office experience
goes—student share their theories, we
acknowledge the logic behind their
thinking, and then we invite them to
consider their theories in the context of
their new surroundings. We pose questions,
we take in their responses, and we use their
thinking to move the discussion forward.
ABOVE
Plumb bob
And as we move from photography to engineering,
to the drafting and planting departments, to blue
printing, to shipping and receiving, and finally to
the plans vault—we reveal the relationship among
the tools that have been exercised, the plans and
drawings created, the photo documentation captured
and ultimately the response of a client finally satisfied.
Students grasp the relationships and can envision the
process in play.
To frame the experience—we trace the steps
involved in the design of the Scarboro Pond section
of Franklin Park. Why? Because that body of water
was not in Olmsted’s original plan for Franklin
Park (1885) and documentation suggests that young
people were the ones who demanded a revision to
include a body of water for skating and sailing. We
wanted today’s young people to feel connected to
their predecessors who had used their voice to make
a lasting difference. In closing, we send students off
with a brochure and map of the Emerald Necklace,
and encourage them to get out to Scarboro Pond to
experience the 3D manifestation of the work that
took place at Fairsted more than a century ago.
For our students, old design tools reveal new
concepts, give rise to new understandings and
perhaps most importantly—enable them to imagine
the many ways in which their unique creative
potential might find expression in a world that’s filled
with possibility. That is SO cool.
To learn more about Good Neighbors: Landscape Design & Community
Building, visit www.nps.gov/frla/forteachers. To learn how your firm can
host a class visit, contact the park Education Specialist at
[email protected].
Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook
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