Design with Intention: The Promise of the Shared Place
Building a Community: We Are What We Repeatedly Do
Shifting Perspectives
Waking Up from a Trance
Make Time for Playtime
Immersing in Nature
Embracing Collective Rituals
Valuing Creation and Connection Over Consumption
Everything Old Is New Again
One Pot at a Time: Letting Go of Perfectionism
Story
Reimagining Places for People, Play, and Purpose
Reimagining Theater
Reimagining Malls and Retail
Reimagining Hotels
Reimagining Theme Parks
Reimagining Museums and Cultural Institutions
Reimagining Public Parks and Gardens
Conversations with Dreamers and Designers
“Obsession with the Viewer”: A Conversation with Joe Rohde
“Being Your Own Main Character”: A Conversation with Evan Kwee
“More Storytelling in Design”: A Conversation with Bob Weis
“Sacred Shenanigans”: A Conversation with Barbara Groth
”The Selfless Architect”: A Conversation with George Proctor
“Lovable Cities”: A Conversation with Mark Wee
“Moment of Wow”: A Conversation with Diana Williams
“There is No Form”: A Conversation with Fabien Riggall
“Listen”: A Conversation with Nancy Seruto
“Immersion from the Neck Up”: A Conversation with Taylor Stoermer
“Desirability”: A Conversation with Welby Altidor
“Moving My Body”: A Conversation with Bryce Kerrison
A Final Thought: Creativity Starts with Curiosity
The Past and Present Inform the Future
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Chapter 1
The Past and Present Inform the Future
I’m a creative writer, immersive storyteller, and experience designer. As curious as I am about many subjects, I’m not a scholar in architecture, urban planning, sociology, or cultural anthropology. There are many books that you should read to understand the relationship between people and places in a more scientific and academic approach. I list some of these books in my recommended reading list at the end of this book.
I approach this book as a curious thinker, storyteller, former Imagineer, and hopeful visitor and user. I ponder and explore places and experiences through a narrative lens. If I could look into my own crystal ball, this is the future I would like to see in our world. My motivation is to create an environment in which I can feel a certain way. An environment that helps me shape the stories that I want to share some day.
The closest field that my interest relates to is that of environmental psychology or psychogeography, a term invented by the Marxist theorist Guy Debord in 1955 to study how we interact with our environment and how it makes us feel and behave. Debord “wanted a revolutionary approach to architecture that was less functional and more open to exploration.”3
This subfield of psychology examines the interplay between individuals and their physical surroundings, and how these interactions affect our behavior, emotions, and well-being. Ultimately, it affects our sense of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. There is a complex relationship between humans and their environment. Ultimately, the buildings and environments we shape end up shaping us. As designers, we need to be intentional in our design of built environments to improve the quality of life for individuals and communities.
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Human behavior and design are inextricably linked. The design of our built environment can greatly influence the way we behave and interact with each other. It can encourage social interaction or discourage it. The design of a neighborhood can influence how much physical activity residents engage in and how frequently they interact with their neighbors. The design of a workspace can greatly influence employee productivity, team collaboration, and well-being.
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Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Disneyland, Anaheim, California.
Photos by Ed Tang
Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
Over the course of two weekends in April 2023, we held the narrative placemaking workshop in one of the properties under the stewardship of the school, the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences12 in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, the former home and studio of the late architect Richard Neutra, which was designed in 1935 and completed in 1939.
Richard Neutra (1892–1970) was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century and was a true innovator in every sense of the word. Neutra experimented constantly and embraced technology as a way to connect people with nature. “His philosophy of ’biorealism’ sought to use biological sciences in architecture ’so that design exploited, with great sophistication, the realm of the senses and an interconnectedness to nature that he believed fundamental and requisite to human well-being,’ as described by architect and Neutra scholar Barbara Lamprecht.”13
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Architecture is storytelling. Architecture is a way for us to connect with nature, ourselves, each other, and our surroundings. There have been many times in my career when I had to work closely with architects to develop the narrative of built spaces. Oftentimes, the project involved transforming a building and adapting it into a new space that embodied its story and purpose. This fellowship was an opportunity for me to design a workshop for the future generation of architects to develop a mindset of collaboration with storytellers and other narrative designers.
What is the unifying element that creates a compelling sense of place?
The former elevated rail track became the foundation to physically and metaphorically connect and support the city and community. With a strong presence of lush trees and native planting, the High Line creates an organic visitor pathway surrounded by layers of greenery. It facilitates and encourages visitor movement and flow, pockets of discovery, rest, and recreation. As all of these elements come together, they provide unique perspectives from above, creating views of the city that would not be visible otherwise. The visual and physical immersive landscape provide a dramatic window to the city.
Constructing shared places like the High Line encourages a communal sense of belonging and connection. Every time I visit the High Line I’m astounded by the number of locals and visitors alike. Locals are so proud of their shared place that they’re bringing their guests to enjoy the experience. Imagine creating a shared place that becomes the pride and joy of your community. A place that they return to time and again because it captures the story and spirit of their city.
I also think about Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, a modern, vibrant market built from a rich, layered history deeply rooted in the culture of the city. “The Wonder Market“ as it was called when it first opened in October 1917, was billed as “the largest and finest public market on the Pacific Coast.”20
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Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
Today, the “Market’s 40 stalls are home to an only-in-LA blend of legacy vendors like China Cafe and Roast To Go (Grand Central Market tenants for over half a century), rising stars, and success stories from the city’s buzzing food scene. The Market is a microcosm of the historic immigrant communities that have shaped Los Angeles and a mosaic of the creativity and vision of the people who call this city home.” It’s a perfect representation of what Los Angeles is about—a melting pot of people, cultures, and cuisines. It’s no surprise that different fusions of flavors are born out of Los Angeles consistently. People come here to reinvent themselves, their careers, and fulfill their dreams.
Eighteen years ago when I moved to Los Angeles from Boston with my husband, I dreamt of going to film school and fulfilling my dream of becoming a screenwriter. After attending film school at USC and working at various production companies, I finally found my calling in life writing for location-based entertainment and immersive experiences. This city is a place where dreamers go. The promise of Los Angeles is that you can come here to reimagine yourself and embark on the next chapter of your life.
Los Angeles offers a promise of fulfillment. So do cities like New York City, Washington, D.C., Paris, London, Tokyo, Singapore, Milan, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon, and Shanghai, among others.
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Milan Cathedral, Italy. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
Creating a Value System
In my first book, I describe the foundation of any story by asking the important questions of Why, What, Who, When, Where, and How. I put all of these questions into a framework called the Immersive Storytelling Question (ISQ) Experience Wheel.
With any good story, the writer/storyteller must ask the Why, What, Who, When, Where, and How of the experience.
The WHY of the experience is the focal point in the wheel, as it informs every other element, especially the WHAT, WHO, WHERE, and WHEN (the spokes). The HOW (rim) serves as the wrapper to the experience which begs the question of how visitors will experience your story as well as how your visitors will feel. Together, every element has an important part to play in the entire story experience.
Once you’ve established the WHY of your built environment (why build this place?), WHAT the place is (what is the format/medium?), WHERE (where is it going to be located?), WHEN (does it evoke a different time period/era?), and WHO (who’s your audience/visitor/ user?), then you can finally develop your HOW.
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Creating the Value System is the first step in determining not only HOW your place is going to look, but how it’s going to FEEL. Search online and you’ll find numerous values that you can draw inspiration from.
Below is a sample list of values that I’ve collected:
attention to? What story do I need to share with the world? Those of us who are more intentional and mindful of our decisions, create the life that we want, so that we don’t simply wake up and follow our routine out of habit (unless the actions we undertake are towards something intentional; a goal we’re trying to pursue, such as working on a craft, a project, or something that fulfills us with purpose).
Every day, we have a chance to rewrite or build our own narrative. We are world builders of our own lives. As designers, we have an even greater responsibility because we affect other people’s lives. We are shaping their narratives. For that reason, we have to be intentional in our world-building and storytelling to build a healthier, more joyful, optimistic world. We have the power, privilege, and responsibility to create something not only for ourselves, but also for the greater good. We create a value system for our community and our society at large.
As designers, we have a responsibility to be intentional in creating places that uphold values we want to propagate in our world. To be intentional means paying attention to the details. That’s how we show our love as designers and storytellers. We listen and show we care by manifesting our values into built places.
What should our values be as a society? Maybe some of the below values resonate with you as a designer.
Trust, Safety, and Security
Health and Wellness
Family and Friendship
Community
Purpose & Passion
Learning and Growth
Time and Attention
Sustainability
Social Impact
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Together, how can we design for the future we want to live in? The future we want to leave behind for our children? When we consider our
future generations, we must design and build with empathy. We need to put ourselves in their shoes to try to understand what they would want and need to live happier, healthier, more fulfilled lives. We must anticipate the fulfillment of the greater good for the future.
Can we build more cities that embrace and practice sustainability on a citywide level? For example, Copenhagen in Denmark has multiple sustainability initiatives in place to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2025. “Buses are making the transition from diesel to electric, while more roads are devoted to cycling. People are getting more accustomed to cycling than driving to get around, with only 29% of households owning a car.”34
When I was visiting Copenhagen for a week in the summer of 2022, I walked almost thirty thousand steps a day. There were safe and ample lanes for cyclists of all ages. Families would spend time together by the river and canals, perusing street markets, dining, cycling, walking, swimming, and hanging out as a community. The city was a haven for thrift shopping, museum visiting, and exploring. We didn’t drive a car once and it was wonderful.
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Colorful houses of Nyhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo by Max Adulyanukosol on Unsplash.
Our group was comprised of people ranging from age nine to forty-seven years old. Together we climbed a waterfall, waded through a digitally depicted koi pond, and struggled to crawl across a room that had no floor. Ultimately, this journey into art was a playground for all of us. It gave us permission to play in a way that we had not experienced as a family for years. We laughed, we played, we helped each other out, and we were in awe together. It was one of the best experiences we’ve ever done as a family.
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My family also loves going to theme parks together. It’s one of the few places in which I, as an adult, can feel invited to play with my kid without feeling out of place. It’s no surprise that many families choose
to go to theme parks as a form of shared experience. There’s something for everyone in the family.
In my conversation with Todd Martens,39 interactive entertainment and theme park journalist for the Los Angeles Times, he said, “I don’t necessarily think of a place like Disneyland as an escape. I think we go there to make sense of the world around us. Coming from somebody who grew up with games, and somebody who writes about games, I’m really looking for a sense of play. When you think of the pandemic, how games were created, there was a sense of community, whether that was through ‘Among Us’ or ‘Animal Crossing,’ people were playing online. I think a lot of the stories and a lot of the narrative of that was when we couldn’t go out and socialize, this gave us a way to socialize. But the real lesson is I think so often in our adult lives, we move away from a sense of playfulness, using play to bring us together.”
It’s important for all of us, not only creatives and designers, to make time for play. It may be as simple as looking back at your own childhood and remembering what you used to do during playtime. Whenever I get stuck in my life, I always remember back to when I was a kid. That kid, guaranteed, will always remind me of who I truly am. When we play, we embrace our real selves again.
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My family in Disneyland. Photo by Margaret Kerrison.
They even get to express their creativity by setting up store displays in a fun, creative way, as if you’re walking into your favorite aunt’s house. People from all walks of life come into this store. The environment is diverse and inclusive because the price point is low. Anyone can afford a one-dollar book or a three-dollar blouse. The senior citizens who work in the store make the setting organized, clean, and welcoming, so that everyone who walks in immediately feels like they belong. Furthermore, it’s situated in the nice, safe, affluent neighborhood of Toluca Lake and is located a few feet away from a Trader Joe’s, giving people the opportunity to stop by in their regular routines.
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Yes Baby! Vintage, Burbank, California. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
American Cancer Society Discovery Shop, Toluca Lake, California. Photo by Margaret Kerrison.
When thinking about your shared places, consider how you can engage the entire community regardless of their age, sex, race, and ethnicity. How can you provide a setting and environment that feels like a place that becomes part of their regular, daily lives rather than an extraordinary event that requires extra planning and scheduling? A place that is easy and convenient to stop by and engage in for a short amount of time, rather than a place to have to plan the whole day around?
5.
Dynamic and Adaptive
Consider how the design of your place can be dynamic, modular, and adaptive for different times of the day and year. Scheduling regular events and activities, such as games, workshops, and presentations can create a sense of community and encourage social interaction.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)67 is one of my favorite places to visit for this reason. Not only does the museum have an impressive permanent collection, they are always curating special exhibitions and events that are so relevant and compelling that they bring me back several times a year. They have a program called NexGenLA, a free membership for kids under seventeen who live in Los Angeles County. As NexGenLA members, kids and teens can visit the museum for free and bring one guest for free admission.68 What parent can say no to that?
Can you ensure that there are enough flexible spaces in your design?
Where will you hold your annual festivals, events, and other activities? Could you bring in the local community to help imagine what that place could look like based on their skills and interests? Could you incorporate local art and design into your space? What are the stories you can tell in different spaces at different times of the year? Consider adding a rotating program that will continually entice visitors to return throughout the year.
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Stores as Stages
Imagine a mall where all of the stores are “stages” and “studios” that showcase the makers and processes behind products and brands. Retail areas can host and celebrate ever-changing products, activities, experiences, and events. By creating affinity to the brand, you create loyal customers who are connected to your values as a company.
At the Atelier Beauté Chanel in Soho, visitors can step into the world of Chanel and receive makeovers, attend beauty workshops, experience a fragrance smelling experience, and experiment with products without feeling pressured to buy anything.
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Consider how IKEA makes you walk through a journey of imagining your dream house and encouraging you to interact with all of the
A former H&M store in Malmo, Sweden converted into a secondhand clothing store. Photo by Margaret Kerrison.
A former MUJI store in Santa Monica converted into 2nd STREET, a Japanese secondhand clothing brand. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
furniture and elements. Imagine how you can re-concept traditional stores into stages to showcase your products and experiences or studios in which you can take visitors behind the curtains and share your brand purpose in full transparency.
Flexible Pop-Up Stores
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Create flexible spaces for creators/designers/makers to set up shop for one month or less. Instead of propagating the usual suspects of brands, why not dedicate a section of your mall to local designers and business owners? What if they could rent out a space for up to four weeks? What if they could design their own spaces and do a trial run of setting up their business in a pop-up model? It would be a great way for consumers
Atelier Beauté Chanel in Soho, New York. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
IKEA Planning Studio, The Shops at Santa Anita, Arcadia, California. Photo by Margaret Kerrison.
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of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Photo by Vinh Tran.
Digital art in the Cosmopolitan lobby, Las Vegas. Photo by Margaret Kerrison.
HAUS OF GAGA/LAS VEGAS. Photo by Margaret Kerrison.
Art.
setting in which different vendors can sell unique local foods? Singapore offers the best local dishes in casual settings with their comfortable and convenient food courts. I think of the Food Republic food court in the many shopping centers of Singapore. The city offers a multitude of indoor food courts in popular destinations that offer signature local dishes.
Immersive Dining Destinations
In addition to better fast food options, I hope to see more dining options that offer an immersive experience. I think of memorable experiences like MoonFlower, a collaboration of Sagaya Ginza, a restaurant that specializes in seasonal dishes, and the art collective teamLab. In an eight-seat restaurant, the experiences feature a permanent digital art installation and dining room by teamLab, based on the theme of “Worlds Unleashed and then Connecting.”92
Theme parks require much bigger capacity than an eight-seat restaurant, so are there opportunities for you to create an experience that blurs the lines between dining and entertainment?
The Space 220 restaurant at EPCOT offers fixed-price lunch and dinner menus, but also fulfills your desire to dine “in space.” When guests begin their journey, they board a special “space elevator” that transports them 220 miles above Earth. As they ascend, viewports give them an aerial view of EPCOT as they travel high above the planet. This idea is a simple one, without any big IP attached to it. It gives guests the sensation of traveling to space and promises spectacular immersive views while dining. Compared to most other restaurants in Disney theme parks, I found it quite remarkable that the younger kids were so quiet during their meals. They were speechless, looking at the viewports in awe and wonder.
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Space 220 restaurant at EPCOT, Orlando, Florida. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
Who’s Telling the Story?
There is no greater importance in the museum world right now than identifying the storyteller. As designers, we have to ensure that visitors are getting the full spectrum of the narrative. Determine which perspectives to share and which points of view can create a truthful, fair, realistic, and holistic version of the story. Who can you include to be part of that curation?
Consider inviting guest curators for your exhibitions so you can keep the stories relevant, fresh, and authentic. Are there certain storytellers who can bring a refreshing perspective to a story that has been told a thousand times before? Is there a guest curator that can bring in a different kind of medium or technology such as multimedia, performance art, interpretive art, experimental film, or another kind of format that can invite visitors to experience the subject matter in a new way?
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CupNoodles Museum Yokohama, Japan. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
For the past three years, the Huntington Library has partnered with the Ghetto Film School (GFS), “an award-winning nonprofit founded in 2000 to educate, develop, and celebrate the next generation of great American storytellers.” Through this creative partnership, “high school and early college-aged GFS students spend ten weeks immersed in a study of the Art Museum’s collections to create short films drawn from their own perspectives. Inspired by The Huntington’s collections, these films reveal the continuing relevance of historical art to contemporary creativity.”96
This partnership is a brilliant practice of bridging old and new generations of artists and their art in a dynamic synergy that creates fresh, diverse perspectives as well as relevancy and immediacy. Everything old is new again.
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Another one of my favorite examples is what the design team at Local Projects did with the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Located at the World Trade Center in New York City, the 9/11 Memorial Museum tells the story of 9/11 through media, narratives, and an approach of collective storytelling through monumental and authentic artifacts, presenting visitors with personal stories of loss, recovery, and hope.97 It’s not a story told by the government, or a group of museum curators. Rather,
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. Photos by Margaret Kerrison.
