Reflection – Storytelling

Challenge

I am a member of the “Design Management” department in a retail-based

organization. My job scope often requires me to embark on innovative taskforces to

propose new retail ideas and architectural innovations ahead of current retail trends.

My recent challenge was to propose unique landscape concepts and ideas that can

be incorporated architecturally to create revolutionary state-of-the-art retail spaces,

to bring greater values to my organization’s future retail malls.

Selection

For kick-start, I focused on extensive research on publications and the internet,

focusing on traditional landscape design theories, latest landscape technologies,

highly dependent on information available on public platforms. As a result, my initial

proposals was very limited in content and deemed as too idealistic and unrealistic,

impossible to implement and unsustainable, particularly criticized and challenged by

my organization’s property management team. Upon reflecting, I realized that my

failure stems from that my proposal was shallow, merely touching upon landscape

design aesthetics, without true understanding for the process of growing and

maintaining plants, and inconsiderate to users’ needs. I recognized that I will need

immersive exploration of the landscape field in order to successfully redefine my

“What is?”, reveal realistic problems and unarticulated insights to uncover underlying

opportunities and possibilities. My approach was to utilize “Story-telling” to help to

empathize with true user experience as a means to curate unconventional retail

ideas.

Application

I interviewed my organization’s property management team to understand their

realistic daily operational difficulties in maintaining landscapes in our malls and

learnt from their iterations of common mistakes made by landscape designers. For

example, more than often, landscape designs are utopias as designers has minimal

understanding for their proposed choice of plant species, which often turns out to be

unsuitable for growth in the local climate and conditions etc. In particular, they

identified that their greatest challenge was maintaining green walls in indoor malls

and ensuring that the green walls continue to attain their designed aesthetic outlook,

and often at an expensive maintenance cost. Subsequently, upon establishing a

rapport with the property management team, they invited me on overseas guided

visits to landscape-themed parks and research laboratories by landscape experts and

meetings with green wall suppliers whom they have acquaintance with. The resultant

proposal is a green wall collaboration with the suppliers we have met. It was an

unanticipated success: achieving a win-win situation for all the 3 parties. For our

property management team, the green walls’ maintenance cost were greatly

reduced with their maintenance work taken over by the suppliers, who in return

showcased their products in our mall for advertisements. Also, I was able to ensure

that my avant-garde landscape ideas can be implemented and sustainably

maintained with expertise assistance, at a reasonable cost.

Insight & Approach

Through adopting the “Storytelling tool”, not only was I able to gain in-depth

understanding and journey-map the property management team’s job to establish

valuable design opportunities through empathizing with their daily job challenges. I

was able to establish a rapport with the property management team through our

interview conversations and interactions, thus successfully inviting their contribution

and engaging them in design and co-creation of my proposal, which definitely has

significant impact on its success. This experience has therefore allowed me fully

comprehend the power of “Storytelling” and the limitless potentials that it

empowers.


Reflection – Storytelling Challenge I am a member of the “ Design Management ” department in a retail - based organization . My job scope often requires me to embark on innovative taskforces to propose new retail ideas and architectural innovations ahead of current retail trends . My recent challenge was to propose unique landscape concepts and ideas that can be incorporated architecturally to create revolutionary state - of - the - art retail spaces , to bring greater values to my organization ’s future retail malls . Selection For kick - start , I focused on extensive research on publications and the internet , focusing on traditional landscape design theories , latest landscape technologies , highly dependent on information available on public platforms . As a result , my initial proposals was very limited in content and deemed as too idealistic and unrealistic , impossible to implement and unsustainable , particularly criticized and challenged by my organization ’s property management team . Upon reflecting , I realized that my failure stems from that my proposal was shallow , merely touching upon landscape design aesthetics , without true understanding for the process of growing and maintaining plants , and inconsiderate to users ’ needs . I recognized that I will need immersive exploration of the landscape field in order to successfully redefine my “ What is ? ” , reveal realistic problems and unarticulated insights to uncover underlying opportunities and possibilities . My approach was to utilize “ Story - telling ” to help to empathize with true user experience as a means to curate unconventional retail ideas . Application I interviewed my organization ’s property management team to understand their realistic daily operational difficulties in maintaining landscapes in our malls and learnt from their iterations of common mistakes made by landscape designers . For example , more than often , landscape designs are utopias as designers has minimal understanding for their proposed choice of plant species , which often turns out to be unsuitable for growth in the local climate and conditions etc . In particular , they identified that their greatest challenge was maintaining green walls in indoor malls and ensuring that the green walls continue to attain their designed aesthetic outlook , and often at an expensive maintenance cost . Subsequently , upon establishing a rapport with the property management team , they invited me on overseas guided visits to landscape - themed parks and research laboratories by landscape experts and meetings with green wall suppliers whom they have acquaintance with . The resultant proposal is a green wall collaboration with the suppliers we have met . It was an unanticipated success : achieving a win - win situation for all the 3 parties . For our property management team , the green walls ’ maintenance cost were greatly reduced with their maintenance work taken over by the suppliers , who in return showcased their products in our mall for advertisements . Also , I was able to ensure that my avant - garde landscape ideas can be implemented and sustainably maintained with expertise assistance , at a reasonable cost . Insight & Approach Through adopting the “ Storytelling tool ” , not only was I able to gain in - depth understanding and journey - map the property management team ’s job to establish valuable design opportunities through empathizing with their daily job challenges . I was able to establish a rapport with the property management team through our interview conversations and interactions , thus successfully inviting their contribution and engaging them in design and co - creation of my proposal , which definitely has significant impact on its success . This experience has therefore allowed me fully comprehend the power of “ Storytelling ” and the limitless potentials that it empowers .