PROJECTS By Ashley D Penn
Ashley D Penn is a landscape architect and writer from the UK based in Finland.
The bigger picture Anecdotal evidence suggests there is a high incidence of dyslexia among landscape practitioners, who bring good spacial awareness and creative thinking/ problem solving to projects. Ashley D Penn tells us why his unique way of processing information has found an ideal home in the profession.
I
was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was 11 years old. Until that point, I had always been told that I was either lazy or stupid. At first, the diagnosis offered an explanation as to why this might not be the case and described the difficulties I faced. These days I have come to understand that dyslexia can be as much an asset as it is a disability. Having left school at the age of 16 with a handful of adequate GCSEs, I felt rather disparaging towards education. I was encouraged by the head of sixth form at my school to enter vocational
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further education. She believed that, given my predicted GCSE results, I would not be able to cope with AÂ levels. I enrolled at Writtle College (now Writtle University College) on a course in amenity horticulture. This proved to be a major turning point for me in my education. Having such a strong background in vocational and land-based training, Writtle has attracted many students with dyslexia. The encouragement I received while at Writtle gradually increased my confidence until I felt comfortable enrolling in an undergraduate degree in landscape and garden design, which
eventually lead on to a postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture. Self-confidence is one of the biggest difficulties for many people who have dyslexia. This can impact upon both written and verbal communication in a professional context. My personal coping mechanism for verbal communication and presentations is to simply try and anticipate every question an audience might have; then make sure I have a contingency plan that covers those eventualities. In many ways, this overcompensation has fuelled my professional development
