How We Design

Abstract Procedural theory, the subject of this exploration, examines how we design. It is considered tacit knowledge and difficult to explain or communicate. Even so, we continue daylighting various aspects of our procedural matters. Much of the resulting work has been published since 1950 and concentrates on modeling staged processes. This research considers what can be learned from our earlier history. The content of four publications was analyzed to structure this historiography. Included are the first introductory landscape architecture textbook (Hubbard & Kimball, 1917), two publications focused solely on procedural theory (Sasaki, 1950; Newton, 1951), and a report on the teaching of landscape architecture for the Council on Instruction in Landscape Architecture (White, 1953). Taken together, they are the first works to daylight our procedural theory. Three strategies emerge in the form of design procedure descriptions for professional practice, mental processes, and staged process models. A set of cognitive skills or abilities provides the common link between these approaches, further exploration of which could take the following three paths: first, continue to illuminate other tacit knowledge content relevant to designing, such as intuition, insight, designerly attitudes, or habits of mind; second, continue to use staged modeling to enrich disciplinary understanding; and third, re‐engage with the mental processes enlarging our own procedural toolbox to offer the broadest range of possibilities for students as they learn how to design.