Early on in the course, University of Iowa urban and regional planning professors Lucie Laurian and Scott Spak asked their students to imagine the perfect landscape. When asked what they saw, many of the students said they envisioned a peaceful place with soft grass, a few shade trees, and a gentle stream or fish pond.

Laurian and Spak told students they were thinking too narrowly. They showed images of natural spaces in China and Japan that depicted jagged mountains, mist-filled valleys, and secluded hermit huts.