Four Human Principles of Design

In his 1961 book "Japanese Gardens for Today," landscape designer David H. Engel speaks of the world within a garden. In Japan, where the garden is as much an exercise in artistry as it is a bearer of spiritual and philosophical messages, these realms of nature hold truths that expand far beyond the confines of their walls.

Engel proposes the garden as a basic unit of space that — regardless of size or complexity — reaches true harmony when it satisfies four foundational human needs. Below are the four human principles of design we hold tight to at ORCA. 

01 Logical Unity

We love to look at things that are logical, the reflections of truth, and the realities of our environment and daily lives. We respect sincerity and abhor falseness. We appreciate what we can understand and feel and know, but we hate to be fooled. We want genuine things about us. If we have to choose between artificial roses, no matter how beautifully and artfully they are contrived, and a bed of modest violets, we would still prefer the latter. We reject sham and look for what is real.

02 Economic Unity

When we seek the satisfaction of a physical need we are simply choosing what we can put to use. This is economic unity which is easily grasped. We tend to select what makes sense and has for us some practical value, and we discard the family needs a simple garden where the growing children can play without the parents’ worrying that they are ruining the garden and what the least risk of injury to the children. Physical needs vary with the individual, but a good garden that satisfies these needs, whatever they be, has economic unity.

03 Esthetic Unity

We want our garden also to have esthetic unity. It must be a composition that affords pleasure in the beholding because we can immediately appreciate, consciously or unconsciously, harmonious relations in the color, texture, shape, size, attitudes, and intervals of its parts. Stated subjectively, it is a harmony of interest and not merely of objects or characteristics.

04 Spiritual Unity

Going one step further, granted that a garden has logical, economic, and esthetic unity, if it still lacks a spiritual unity, it has not achieved its final and best purpose. This is the unity which ties the building to its natural environment, and then links the people who live there to both. It means that in the course of living in our house and garden we become a part of it, and it a part of us. This is the unique quality, the ideal of a Japanese garden.