Traditionally, children are not introduced to concepts like landscape architecture until later on in their academic journey, if at all. Xiao Cui recognized the opportunity to leverage MatterLab as a way to combine her passion for the profession and natural talent for hand drawing to illustrate the value of landscape architecture to young children through an unlikely medium, a children’s book.

Throughout the pages of her book, Xiao tells the story of Emma Lake, a young girl who loves parks and desires to be part of creating them, to communicate the role of landscape architecture in shaping the world around us. We sat down with Xiao to discuss her process for illustrating an entire children’s book and future plans for publishing Emma Lake’s story.