Interview - David Engwicht





 DAVID ENGWICHT
INTERVIEW


Where or what is your first memory of place?
I have very few memories of place as a child. My father was an itinerant gospel preacher and we moved from town to town. I felt like an outsider for all of my childhood, right into my teens, which may seem like a strange background for someone who goes on to become a place maker.  But I had to learn to carve out a sense of place inside my own psyche. I had to be at home with myself. So place for me was solitary, private spaces.

What do you think of the term ‘placemaking’?
I think it is a great term, although like all terms, it is in the process of becoming subverted and watered down by those who take a “design-centric” approach to place. Place is first and foremost a feeling, not a location. For me place making is like home making, where the homemaker turns a house into a home.

When thinking of place, how do you approach the process of design?
Design is a carriage at the back of the place making train, never the engine. I am passionate about great design. But if design drives place making all you end up with is a “display home” not a genuine sense of place. Poor people are often much better homemakers than rich people, because they must “furnish their home with soul”. When designing I often consider what I would do if I had only half the budget. This forces you to think about furnishing the space with soul and imagination.

I also look for what is bringing the space down. You can get 98% of a design right, but 2% wrong can totally destroy the sense of place. I try to identify that 2% and fix it. I also believe that turning deficits into assets is the best way to give a place a point of difference.

What do landscape architects need to understand about New Zealand to practice here?
It is not just about New Zealand. They need to understand that landscape architecture is not primarily about aesthetics, or the imposition of order, or of the utilitarian functions to be performed by the space. The key question is, “How can this space nurture the people who are exposed to it? How can it help them reach their highest potential? How can it create memorable experiences that are potentially transformative? How can it provoke creativity and innovation?

Place is not always urban or within a cityscape. At what scale does placemaking begin?
At the psychological level, in one brain. As stated earlier it is a “feeling”, a feeling that one is safe and nurtured. It is connected to the first 9 months we spent in the womb. It is a supportive environment in which we can grow into our fullest potential.

Does community consultation fit into your design process and where does the weight sit – client, user, design process or intuition. Pie chart perhaps?
I believe in an agile approach to planning – what I call “planning after use, not before use”. The client generally only knows 20% of what they want. My job is to take them on a journey of discovery. Providing you take small enough steps, you don’t need long “conversations”. You do a bit, and then watch how the client reacts to what you have done. The collaboration is in creating a product – not drawing up plans. While there is some planning in the process, the emphasis is on creating experiences of place, then seeing where these experiences take you. I am constantly surprised that if you trust the process, you get an end product that surpasses anything you could have masterplanned.

Do you need consensus to make design decisions?
Not at all. Set up trials and experiments. Objections are often based in ignorance of how a space can work. This is a major drawback of the old masterplanning approach. People have to react to a hypothetical situation and often simply react out of fear of the unknown. Give them tasters rather than drawings.

It’s simple to focus on supporting or easy to sway stakeholders to generate input to satisfy a client’s desired outcome. How do you target consultation?
I try to educate people about the basic principles of what makes a space work as a place. Once they understand these principles it is much easier for them to take a journey of discovery with you.