Moved By Design
Design changes us. We don’t perceive design just visually. It changes how we feel as we move around and through it. Walking down city streets, the straight lines pull us forward, move us ahead—make us hurry.
Response to design varies according to personal preference or mood. Sometimes we like to be hurried; sometimes we like to be slowed down. Since most of my life is on the fast track, I like a chance to slow down. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I found the straight lines of the streets hurrying me along. But when I went to traditional Japanese gardens, their curves encouraged me to pause, to look more closely at the clusters of rounded stone and black pine.
Curves were 
everywhere: at the ponds’ edge, in the trunk and branches of the pines, in the round edges of the clusters of stone. Movement in the water added more curves, as koi cruised the edge of the ponds looking for handouts of bread and crackers. Turtles rocked from side to side, creating a curving motion as they too swam along the shore hoping for food.
The paths in the traditional gardens followed the curving border of the ponds. Even the design of the paving stones set into the paths slowed me down; I had to step carefully and watch where I put my feet. Bridges either curve over the pond or are made of two long slabs—offset, so that you don’t just cross over quickly, but need to slow and watch your step to cross without falling in.
As I went along the curving paths, every few steps I came upon a new scene, which caused me to pause to take it in. Traditional Japanese gardens are very structured, yet their effect can be to free the mind. Clusters of stone (sekigumi) and trees are presented to spark the imagination and pull the mind off its usual track. Many pines were shaped so that branches curved downward, drawing the eye to the water.
dry waterfall (karetaki)
I found that the groups of stones conveyed more than their surface expression. The garden brochures helped me to see the oku-fukai (deeper layers) of the stone designs. They could convey the image of a mountain, instantly making a small space feel expansive. Or they could convey other landscape scenes.
At Kiyosumi Garden, I saw a dry waterfall (karetaki), with a cascade of stones instead of a cascade of water. My imagination went traveling, seeing a fall of water that was only there in my mind. Then I moved on, feeling refreshed.
I saw another dry waterfall lined with tall stones at Kyuu Shiba Rikyuu Garden, with an extra feature I’d never seen before: you could move along between the stones as if you were the water cascading down. Walking down the path of the dry waterfall, I felt both body and mind able to move in a new way, my imagination set free.
by Rosemary Warden [© 2010]
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