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Design Approach
Overall Paradigm
The overall paradigm of "Program - Analysis - Synthesis" fits most site and landscape design projects in one way or another.
Program is about your goals and needs.
- What do you want to do on the site? What do you want it to become? What are all the uses, activities, and features you want on the site?
- How should the site function? What is its purpose?
- What do you want the site to say to the world about you?
Analysis is about your site.
- What opportunities does the site offer? Are there great views to exploit, or huge trees to preserve?
- What constraints does the site have? Are there steep slopes? Is the soil rocky or clay?
- What ordinances does the locality impose on site development, such as building height, or parking count, or floor-area ratio?
- What happens around the site, on neighboring properties?
- What is upwind and upstream?
Synthesis merges the two into a Plan.
- Which uses fit where? Does topography dictate these choices?
- How do the pieces fit together? Which ones belongs together, and which ones should be separated?
- How do you navigate into them and between them?
- How do we build what needs to be built while preserving what needs to be preserved?
- How detailed do you need the plan to become? Is it a broad painting of your vision, or a site plan suitable for review and construction?
Much of this seems like common sense once you know it, but substantial parts of it will require forethought, training, and technical expertise to get it right. And for something as expensive as site and landscape development can be, you want to get it right the first time. A good plan is the first step.
General Approach
So what does all that mean? Most importantly, COLLABORATION is the key word. I might do the technical work, but WE work together to develop a plan that will work.
First, I listen.
- We talk about your goals and desires. Your dreams. What you need to achieve with your project.
- If this is a public project, we talk with stakeholders: the public, user groups, funding agencies, review agencies, and so on.
Then, I study.
- We look at your site or your project area. We talk about what it offers and what it doesn't. You can tell me everything you know about it. What have you found? What are your ideas? What worries you?
- I walk the site or project area and analyze it for myself. Maybe take soil samples. Maybe study wind patterns or traffic flow or whatever your project needs.
- I review the regulations and ordinances that might impact what we do with the site or project area.
Finally, I sketch. And draw. Rearrange and resize until it all fits together well.
- For residential master plans, hand sketches usually work best.
- For larger scale projects, especially site plans or AT networks, I will use CADD and similar tools to draw much more precisely.
- We review the work together and make adjustments to develop a plan that will guide the next steps, whether they are more detailed plans or going into construction.
