In this presentation, I will discuss the generative role of design narration and video production in the provocation and rehabilitation of an existing environment. Bemis Gardens was an exhibition and design laboratory that sought to consider the urban condition of the contemporary art center and its relationship with downtown Omaha through the transformation of the Bemis Center’s exterior into a public art site and urban garden. In the midst of the Building | Bemis construction process, a project that will result in a significant expansion of the artist-in-residence program, renovated fabrication facilities and a restored front dock—this exhibition and project series served to initiate a holistic reconsideration of the Center’s land use and exterior relationships with the public. In recent years, artists, architects, ecologists and social designers have formed new hybrids between food production and social space, urban ecologies and public art, forgotten space and material ingenuity, and public spectacle. Bemis Gardens was structured as an open laboratory and interactive exhibition. Throughout its three-month run the exhibition hosted a series of workshops consisting of professionals from diverse fields in effort to consider urban land use futures and speculate on specific actionable possibilities for the Bemis Center’s site. The installation of the Water Hutch designed and constructed by Goché is one such actionable proposition. Reminiscent of the many waterways that meander through the Midwest, the work consists of a sinuous line made up of three oxbows. The constituent forms are constructed of built up dimensional lumber. The set of parts serve as an ambiguous measure by which people situate themselves. It operates metaphorically as an open set of shelves onto which people, and thereby, memories accumulate. This set of parts served as provocateur for the subsequent design strategies developed as a result of this open laboratory and interactive exhibition. Our hope was to consider the socio-spatial effects of this form as it relates to the new space of the dock through the development of interdisciplinary performance was staged on the Water Hutch in Gallery One at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. As an introduction to the social phenomenon associated with the hutch, a literary abstract and video was presented. In addition, we developed a generative literary narrative in effort to inform the mock installation of the Water Hutch and all subsequent installations specific to the space of the reconstructed dock.