For every site there is an ideal use. For every use there is an ideal site.
A first step in the design of any architectural, landscape architectural, or engineering project is to have a clear understanding of just what is being designed.
In defining the program for a project we are at this point less concerned about what it will look like and more concerned about what it will be.
Many a completed installation functions poorly or actually precludes the very uses for which it was planned. Perhaps it was doomed because it was forced upon an unsuitable site or because it was not well designed, not clearly expressive of its purpose. Or its operation may be hampered by the frictions it generates. Most often, however, the root of failure lies in the fact that a program was never fully considered; the complete project with all essential relationships and impacts was never envisioned or thoughtfully conceived.
To dream soaring dreams is not enough. To have value, dreams and ideas must be translated into the hard reality of feasible proposals.
It is our tacit responsibility as planners to help carry each work to successful conclusion. To accomplish this aim, to plan a project intelligently, we must first understand its nature. It is essential that we develop a comprehensive program. By research and investigation we must organize a precise and detailed list of requirements on which we can base our design. To this end we might well consult with all interested persons and draw freely upon their knowledge and views—with the owners, with potential users, with maintenance personnel, with planners of similar undertakings, with our collaborators, with anyone who can contribute constructive thought. We will look to history for applicable examples. We will look ahead to envision possible improvements based on newly developing techniques, new materials, and new concepts of planning.
Design as a form-giving process is the creation of places, spaces, or artifacts to serve a predetermined purpose.
In every area of human endeavor, the most successful projects are those best planned and designed.
We will try to combine the best of the old with the best of the new. Since the completed work will be the physical manifestation of this program, the program itself must be designed thoroughly, imaginatively, and completely.
The responsibility of the planner is to guide those involved to the best solution and to help ensure in all ways possible the project’s success.
If we as planners are concerned with wedding a proposed structure or use to a site, let us first be sure that the parties are compatible. We have all seen buildings or groups of buildings that seem foreign to their location. No matter how excellent these structures or how well contrived their plan, the total result is disturbing.
It would seem obviously foolish, for instance, to situate:
A school fronting on an arterial trafficway
A roadside restaurant with zero approach-sight distance
A shopping center without adequate parking space
A farm without a source of potable water
A tavern near a city church
A fabricating plant with room for neither storage yard nor expansion
A new home at the end of a jet landing strip
A meat-packing plant upwind of a suburb
An apartment building 30 feet above a mined-out seam of coal
Each would seem, on the face of it, doomed to failure. Yet each, to the coauthor’s knowledge, has been attempted. It is reassuring to those of logical mind to note that in the due course of events each enterprise has been subjected to disrupting strains, scathing antipathies, bankruptcy, or collapse—all rooted in the choice of an inappropriate site for the given use.
Any plan is essentially the scheduling of specific means to definite ends.… Any kind of planning implies conscious purpose.…
Catherine Bauer
In far too many cases, a project has started with the unquestioned acceptance of an unsuitable location. This is a cardinal planning error. An important, if not the most important, function of a planner is the sometimes delicate, sometimes forceful task of guiding an entrepreneur to the selection of the best possible location.
Alternative Sites
As advisers, we should be capable of determining the requisite site requirements for any given venture and be able to weigh the relative merits of alternative situations. First we must know what we are looking for. We must thoughtfully, perhaps even tediously, list those site features that we consider necessary or useful for the proposed project, be it a power dam, a new town, or a frozen yogurt stand. Next we should reconnoiter and scout out the territory for likely locations. For this task we have a number of helpful tools, such as U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maps, aerial and remote-sensing photography, road maps, transportation maps, planning commission data, zoning maps, chamber of commerce publications, plat books, and city, county, township, and borough plans.
The purpose of the game is to improve the environment whenever you do anything to change it.
Garrett Eckbo
With maps or other materials as a guide, we will visit the most likely places and explore them. Such scouting parties may be launched by automobile or plane or, even better, helicopter, which not only offers immunity from barbed-wire fences, cockleburs, and no-trespassing signs but also gives an ideal overall perspective of likely properties. Much can be noted from an automobile, especially the relation of proposed sites to adjacent development patterns and approaches. But sooner or later, to be effective, we must get up off the seat cushions and cruise about the property on foot.
If a client makes the wrong planning decision in site acquisition or otherwise, and has first advised the planner, the fault lies not so much with the client as with the planner, who has failed to present a persuasive case.
Having narrowed our choice to several alternative tracts of land, we will then analyze them in detail. The favorable and unfavorable aspects of each will be carefully noted and assayed. Sometimes we will discuss the comparative analysis of the various parcels informally with the client. Again, we may prepare a well-documented report for presentation, as to a board of directors, an authority, or a city council. Such a report, oral or graphic, may list the sites in order of suitability. Often, however, it is better to present only the relative merits of the alternative sites, in clear, concise terms, and leave to the decision makers the business of discussing pros and cons and making the selection.
Given the facts and a full understanding of the alternatives, reason tends to prevail.
The Ideal Site
We all know of planned developments that seem to be natural outgrowths of their sites: a home terraced down to a fronting beach; a subdivision artfully fitted to the contours, vegetation, and other topographical features of a pleasant valley; a school with its playground in a parklike setting placed at the community center and approached along safe and inviting pedestrian paths; a factory with ordered production units, tanks, storage areas, and shaded parking space all planned in admirable relationship to approach roads, trackage, or piers.
Our primary work as planners is to help fit human activities to the “want to be” of the land.
We must determine those landscape features, natural and built, best suited to our needs and then search for a site that provides them. The ideal situation is the one that, with least modification, most fully meets the project requirements.
Now that we have selected the location, what is our next concern? At the same time that the program requirements are being studied and refined we must gain a thorough understanding of the site and its surroundings: not only the specific area contained within the property boundaries, but the total site, which includes the environs to the horizon and beyond.
Existing off-site features may guide or even dictate how the site is developed. Barry W. Starke, EDA
Graphic survey information and supporting reference data are essential, but they must be supplemented by at least one, and preferably repeated, visits to the site. Only by actual site observation can we get the feel of the property, sense its relationship to the surrounding areas, and become fully aware of the lay of the land. Only in the field can we gain an understanding of the site’s bounding road, the lines of pedestrian approach, the arc of the sun, the prevailing breeze, the good views, the ugly views, the sculptural landforms, the springs, the trees, the usable areas, those features to be preserved if possible, and those to be eliminated. In short, only on the ground can we come to know the site and its character. We must climb from hollow to hill, kick at the sod, dig into the soil. We must look and listen and fully sense those qualities that are peculiar to this specific landscape area.
The extensional aspects of a site.
Whatever we can see along the lines of approach is an extensional aspect of the site. Whatever we can see from the site (or will see in the probable future) is part of the site. Anything that can be heard, smelled, or felt from the property is part of the property. Any topographical feature, natural or built, that has any effect on the property or its use must be considered a planning factor.
The site and its extensional environs.
In our present power-happy and schedule-conscious era, this vitally important aspect of developing a simpatico feeling for the land and the total project site is too often overlooked. And too often our completed work gives tragic evidence of our haste and neglect.
In Japan, historically, this keen awareness of the site has been of great significance in landscape planning. Each structure has seemed a natural outgrowth of its site, preserving and accentuating its best features. Studying in Japan, the coauthor was struck by this consistent quality and once asked an architect how he achieved it in his work. “Quite simply,” said the architect. “If designing, say, a residence, I go each day to the piece of land on which it is to be constructed. Sometimes for long hours with a mat and tea. Sometimes in the quiet of evening when the shadows are long. Sometimes in the busy part of the day when the streets are abustle and the sun is clear and bright. Sometimes in the snow and even in the rain, for much can be learned of a piece of ground by watching the rainfall play across it and the runoff take its course in rivulets along the natural drainageways.
Site features can be the reason for the project. Andrew Buchanan, Subtle Light Photography/ Charles Anderson
“I go to the land, and stay, until I have come to know it. I learn to know its bad features—the jangling friction of the passing street, the awkward angles of a windblown pine, an unpleasant sector of the mountain view, the lack of moisture in the soil, the nearness of a neighbor’s house to an angle of the property.
Therefore, let us build houses that restore to man the life-giving, life-enhancing elements of nature. This means an architecture that begins with the nature of the site. Which means taking the first great step toward assuring a worthy architecture, for in the rightness of a house on the land we sense fitness we call beauty.
Frank Lloyd Wright
“I learn to know its good features—a glorious clump of maple trees, a broad ledge perching high in space above a gushing waterfall that spills into the deep ravine below. I come to know the cool and pleasant summer airs that rise from the falls and move across an open draw of the land. I sense perhaps the deliciously pungent fragrance of the deeply layered cedar fronds as the warm sun plays across them. This patch I know must be left undisturbed.
“I know where the sun will appear in the early morning, when its warmth will be most welcome. I have learned which areas will be struck by its harshly blinding light as it burns hot and penetrating in the late afternoon, and from which spots the sunset seems to glow the richest in the dusky peace of evening. I have marveled at the changing dappled light and soft, fresh colors of the bamboo thicket and watched for hours the lemon-crested warblers that have built their nests and feed there.
“I come to sense with great pleasure the subtle relationship of a jutting granite boulder to the jutting granite profile of the mountainside across the way. Little things, one may think, but they tell one, ‘Here is the essence of this fragment of land; here is its very spirit. Preserve this spirit, and it will pervade your gardens, your home, and your every day.’
“And so I come to understand this bit of land, its moods, its limitations, its possibilities. Only now can I take my ink and brush in hand and start to draw my plans. But in my mind the structure by now is fully visualized. It has taken its form and character from the site and the passing street and the fragment of rock and the wafting breeze and the arching sun and the sound of the falls and the distant view.
“Knowing the owner and his family and the things they like, I have found for them here a living environment that brings them into the best relationship with the landscape that surrounds them. This structure, this house that I have conceived, is no more than an arrangement of spaces, open and closed, accommodating and expressing in stone, timber, tile, and rice paper a delightful, fulfilling way of life. How else can one come to design the best home for this site?”
Thus we seek two values in every landscape: one, the expression of the native quality of the landscape, the other, the development of maximum human livability.…
Site planning must be thought of as the organization of the total land area and air space of the site for best use by the people who will occupy it. This means an integrated concept in which buildings, engineering construction, open space and natural materials are planned together at one time.…
Garrett Eckbo
There can be no other way! This, in Japan as elsewhere, is in simplest terms the planning process—for the home, the community, the city, the highway, or the national park.
A thorough understanding of the site is necessary for a successful design response. PWP Landscape Architecture
Comprehensive land plan. SWA Group
In America, we planners approach our problems in a less contemplative frame of mind. We are “less sensitive” (of which fact we are proud) and “more practical” (a pathetic misnomer). We are rushed by the pressures of time, economics, and public temperament. The planning process is accelerated, sometimes to the point of frenzy. But the principle remains the same: to realize a project on a site effectively, we must fully understand the program, and we must be fully aware of the physical properties of the site and of the total environs. Our planning then becomes the science and art of arranging the most fitting relationships.
There is a little mystery to the art and science of site planning. Those whose professional work it is have developed it into a systematic process. Its purpose is to best arrange the elements of any planned development in relation to the natural and constructed features of a site and its environs. Whether for a home garden, university campus, or military installation, the approach is essentially the same.
The site-planning procedure normally involves the following ten steps, several of which may take place concurrently:
- Definition of intent (scope, goal, and objectives)
- Procurement of topographic survey
- Program development
- Data gathering and analysis
- Site reconnaissance
- Organization of reference plan set and file
- Preparation of exploratory studies
- Comparative analysis and revision of studies, leading to an approved conceptual plan
- Development of preliminary development plans and estimate of costs
- Preparation of construction plans, specifications, and bidding documents
Traditionally, most land and landscape planning has been done on a limited scale and with limited objectives. Given a proposed project description, the planner has been expected to fit it onto a given site to the maximum advantage of the owner. Sometimes the effects on the neighboring lands and waters were considered. Sometimes they were not. In our emerging environmental and land-use ethic it is believed that they should, and must be.
The comprehensive planning process is a systematic means of determining where you are, where you want to be, and how best to get there.
Regional influence. Michael Calderwood/Grupo de Diseño Urbano, S.C.
In building a cabin in the forest the native instincts of the pioneers as they felled the trees and cleared the land may have been good enough. In contemporary times however, with land reserves receding so rapidly and with building sites under such stress, every development is subject to new planning factors. The larger and more intensive the project, the greater the consequences and the greater the need for care and concern. This has led to a process known as comprehensive land planning. It is a systematic approach especially suited to developments of greater scope or sensitivity.
Even in single-home construction it is incumbent upon the planner to organize a file of background information. This will include the governing zoning maps, codes, and other pertinent regulations. City plans and street maps will show the location of community schools, parks, shopping areas, and other amenities to which the residence will relate. Needed also is a thorough investigation of all that transpires on, contiguous to, or beneath the building site—including such potential subsurface surprises as mine workings, high-pressure fuel transmission lines, or buried cables.
The best source of design criteria is field observation.
Comprehensive land planning is usually initiated with an investigation of the region embracing the project site. The immediate vicinity and its interrelationships with the property to be developed is given more thorough study. Finally, the project site itself is analyzed to gain the full understanding so essential to landscape planning.
Site Analysis Guidelines
The following procedure is suggested as a guide to systematic site analysis:
Regional Influences. The site analysis process most often begins with the location of the project site on a regional map and a cursory investigation of regional, vicinity, and area planning factors. From such documents as U.S. Geological Survey maps, road maps, various planning reports, and the Internet, much useful insight can be gained about the surrounding topographic features, land uses, roadway and transportation network, recreational opportunities, and employment, commercial, and cultural centers. Together these establish the extensional setting to which the proposed project will relate.
The Project Site. Before design studies can be initiated, the planner must be fully conversant with the specific nature of the site—its constraints and possibilities. This knowledge is obtained mainly by means of a topographic survey and site visitation.
Topographic Survey. The basic topographic survey is customarily prepared by a registered surveyor at an engineering scale (1 inch = 20 feet, 50 feet, or 100 feet, etc.) This scale is predetermined to be the one best for the project’s planning studies. A survey specification describing the information to be provided by the surveyor and the form of presentation is the responsibility of the planner.
Site Analysis Map. One of the most effective means of developing a keen appreciation of the property and its nature is the preparation of a site analysis map. A print of the topographic survey furnished by the surveyor is taken into the field, and from actual site observation additional notes are jotted down upon it in the planner’s own symbols. These amplify the survey notations and describe all conditions on or related to the site that are pertinent in its planning. Such supplementary information might describe or note:
- Outstanding natural features such as springs, ponds, streams, rock ledges, specimen trees, contributing shrub masses, and established ground covers, all to be preserved insofar as possible
- Tentative outlines of proposed preservation, conservation, and development (PCD) areas
- Negative site features or hazards such as obsolete structures or deleterious materials to be removed, dead or diseased vegetation, noxious weed infestation, lack of topsoil, or evidence of landslides, subsidence, or flooding
- Directions and relative volumes of vehicular traffic flow on approach roads; points of connection to pedestrian routes, bikeways, and riding trails
- Logical points of site ingress or egress
- Potential building locations, use areas, or routes of movement
- Commanding observation points, overlook areas, and preferred viewing sectors
- Best views, to be featured, and objectionable views, to be screened, together with a brief note describing each
- Direction of prevailing winter winds and summer breezes
- Exposed, windswept areas and those protected by nearby topographical forms, groves, or structures
- Off-site attractions and nuisances
- An ecological and microclimatic analysis of the property and its environs
- Other factors of special significance in the project planning
In addition to such information observed in the field, further data gleaned from research may be noted on the site analysis map or included separately in the survey file. Such information might include:
- Abutting landownerships
- Names of utility companies whose lines are shown, company addresses, phone number, engineers
- Routes and data on projected utility lines
- Approach patterns of existing roads, drives, and walks
- Relative abutting roadway traffic counts
- Zoning restrictions, building codes, and building setback lines
- Mineral rights, depth of coal, mined-out areas
- Water quality and supply
- Core-boring logs and data
- Base map
It is helpful early on in the planning process to prepare a base map which sets the format for all sheets to follow. Drawn on drafting film or stable translucent paper to give clear reproduction, it sets the trim lines and title block with project name and location, owner’s and planner’s identification, north point, scale, and dateline. Aside from the property lines and coordinates, it will show only that information to be carried forward to all derivative sheets.
Most site and architectural studies, conceptual plans, and working drawings will be prepared on reproducible prints of this base map.
Plan Set and Reference File. As the surveys, base sheets, overlays, site analysis map, and other background data are developed, they are assembled as a coordinated reference file—together with supporting plans, reports, and correspondence. All are to be kept complete and updated throughout the planning process. With the application of computer techniques, the preparation, maintenance of, and access to the reference files can be streamlined and expedited.
Perhaps the planning process can best be explained as a series of subconscious conversations.… —the question posed, the factors weighed, and then the recorded conclusion. The more lucid the thinking, the more coherent the powers of idea communication … the better is the plan.
B. Kenneth Johnstone
The material in the reference file will vary for each project depending upon its size and complexity. For more extensive planning—as for a hospital, stadium, or new community—the file may include such background data as:
- Regional and local master plans
- Zoning and subdivision regulations
- Projected highway network
- Regional water management program
- Airfields and flight zones
- Transmission lines and stations
- Utility systems
- Fire, police, and ambulance services
- Flood and storm records
- Air and water pollution sources and controls
- Demographic data and user profiles
- Schools
- Recreation facilities
- Cultural amenities
- Economic statistics and trends
- Tax rates and assessments
- Governance
A seed of use—a cell of function—wisely applied to a receptive site will be allowed to develop organically, in harmonious adaptation to the natural and the planned environment.
There is an area of the conceptual and forming process that is common to the four major physical planning disciplines and often to others as well. This is the formulation of the basic plan concept by which, in sketch or diagram, the use areas and plan forms are conceived in harmony with the natural and constructed forms, forces, and features of the total project site. Usually the plan concept is best arrived at through a collaborative effort in which all participants contribute freely of their experience and ideas.
We have by now developed a comprehensive program defining the proposed nature of our project. We have begun to sense its resonance within the total environs. Up to this point, the planning effort has been one of research and analysis. It has been painstaking and perhaps tedious, but this phase is of vital importance because it is the only means by which we can achieve full command of the data on which our design will be based. From this point on, the planning process becomes one of integration of proposed uses, structures, and site.
Plan Concepts
If structure and landscape development are contemplated, it is impossible to conceive one without the other, for it is the relationship of structure to site and site to structure that gives meaning to each and to both.
This point perhaps raises the question of who on the planning team—architect, landscape architect, engineer, or others—is to do the conceiving. Strangely, this problem, which might seemingly lead to warm debate, seldom arises, for an effective collaboration brings together experts in various fields of knowledge who, in a free interchange of ideas, develop a climate of perceptive awareness and know-how. In such a climate, plan concepts usually evolve more or less spontaneously. Since the collaboration is arranged and administered by one of the principals (who presumably holds the commission), it is usually this team leader who coordinates the planning in all its aspects and gives it expressive unity. It is the work of the collaborators to advance their assigned tasks and to aid in the articulation of the main design idea in all ways possible.
On larger commissions the landscape architect often serves as a member of a closely coordinated professional team, which includes architects, engineers, planners, and scientist-advisors. A generalist, the landscape architect brings to the planning-design process specialized training in the physical sciences—such as physiography, geology, hydrology, biology, and ecology—and a feeling for the land, human relationships, and design.
Site-Structure Diagram
When planning a project or a structure in relation to a land area, we first consider all the various uses to be fitted together and accommodated. For a high school, for instance, we would determine the approximate architectural plan areas and their shapes—the general plan areas required for service, parking, outdoor classrooms, gardens, game courts, football fields, track, bleachers, and perhaps future school expansion. Over a point of the topographic survey (or site analysis map) we would then indicate, in freehand line, use areas of logical size and shape in studied relation to each other and to the natural and built landscape features. Having thus roughed in the site use areas, we may at last block in the architectural elements of the project. The result is the site-structure diagram.
Flow diagram.
Conceptual Site Plan
The balance of the planning process is a matter of comparative analysis and refinement of detail—a process of creative synthesis. A good plan, reduced to essentials, is no more than a record of logical thought. A dull plan is a record of ineffectual thinking or of very little thinking at all. A brilliant plan gives evidence of response to all site factors, a clear perception of needs and relationships, and a sensitive expression of all components working well together.
In his admirable treatise On the Laws of Japanese Painting, Henry P. Bowie has written:
One of the most important principles in the art of Japanese painting—indeed, a fundamental and entirely distinctive characteristic—is that of living movement, sei do … it being, so to say, the transfusion into the work of the felt nature of the thing to be painted by the artist. Whatever the subject to be translated—whether river or tree, rock or mountain, bird or flower, fish or animal—the artist at the moment of painting it must feel its very nature, which, by the magic of art, he transfers into his work to remain forever, affecting all who see it with the same sensations he experienced when executing it.
Indeed, nothing is more constantly urged upon his attention than this great underlying principle, that it is impossible to express in art what one does not feel.
And so it is with planning. We can create only that for which we have first developed an empathic understanding. A shopping mall? As designers, we must feel the quickening tempo, the pull and attraction, the bustle, the excitement of the place. We must sense the chic boutique displays, the mouthwatering sights and smells of the bakery shop; we must see in our mind the jam-packed counter of the hardware store and the drugstore with its pyramids of mouthwash, perfume, nail polish, hot-water bottles, and jelly beans. We must see in the market the heaps of grapefruit, oranges, rhubarb, brussels sprouts, bananas; whiff the heady fragrance of the floral stalls; picture the shelf on shelf of bargain books, the bolts of cotton prints, the sloping trays of peppermints and chocolate creams. We must feel the brightness of the sunshine on the sidewalks and the coolness and protection of shaded doorways and arcades. We must feel crowds and traffic and benches and trees and perhaps the sparkle and splash of a fountain or two. And then we can start planning.
It is not the thing done or made which is beautiful, but the doing. If we appreciate the thing, it is because we relive the heady freedom of making it. Beauty is the byproduct of interest and pleasure in the choice of action.
Jacob Bronowski
A children’s zoo? If we would design one, we must first feel like one of the flocking children, the gawking, clapping, squealing kids; we must appreciate the delight, the laughter, the chatter, the confusion, and the rollicking thrill of the place. We must feel the diminutive, squeaky cuteness of the mouse town, the bulk and immensity and cavelike hollowness of the spouting whale with its dimly illumined interior. We must know the preening strut of the elegantly wandering peacocks, the quack, quack, quacking of the waddling ducks, the soft furry whiteness of the lop-eared rabbits, and the clop, clop, clopping and creaking harness and the awed delight of the pony ride. As we make our plans, we must, in our minds, be at the children’s zoo, and we must see it, hear it, feel it, and love it as a child would love it.
Meaningful design is far from an exercise in graphic exposition. It is an empathetic process—a creative act of the intellect.
Design begins with a conceptual determination of the desired nature of space or object. This “what shall it be” aspect may be focalized by a flash of intuitive genius, by a methodical analysis of possibilities, or by logical extension and improvement upon past examples.
The visual aspects of superior design are marked by a clear and direct expression of idea, time, place, materials, and technology, coupled with a fine instinct for three-dimensional form.
Are we to design a parkway, hotel plaza, terminal, or bathing beach? If we would create them, we must first have a feeling for their nature. This self-induced sensitivity we might call the planning attitude. Before we mature as planners, it will be intuitive.
Impact Assessment
It has been proposed that no development should be permitted if, all things considered, it were to do more harm than good. But how is this to be ascertained? Until recently this might well have been a matter of hotly debated opinion. With the advent of the federally mandated Environmental Impact Statement, however, there is now the means of making a fairly rational appraisal.
The chart that follows provides a checklist of environmental and performance factors to be considered in large-scale, comprehensive planning.
An official Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), as is required on most federally aided projects, is governed by a pro forma set of instructions. Essentially the statement is to describe:
- All significant negative impacts to be expected from the proposed development, and the means by which the planners have ameliorated them as far as feasible.
- All positive values created by the project, and the means by which they have been enhanced in the planning process.
- The rationale for proceeding with construction. Only with rare exceptions is approval justified unless the long-term negative factors are outweighed by the benefits.
When such environmental considerations are defined and explored early, they become not only a useful test but also a sound basis for the evolving studies and resulting planned solution. The negative impacts of the project can thus be reduced and the attributes significantly increased during the planning process. The many benefits of such a systematic approach cannot be overemphasized.
The advent of the computer, the Internet, and other cyberspace-related advances has altered the planning/design process immensely—yet fundamentally has changed it not at all. The goals and procedural steps of planning remain the same. As a means of attaining the goals, however, the computer has opened up an intriguing range of possibilities. Together with its accouterments it has provided a whole new array of bright and radiant tools. It is important that in our fascination with the tools we are not distracted from the task to be accomplished.
Capability
The function of computer technology is to access, store, manage (manipulate), and display information. As to access, once the planner has developed the project program and decided upon the background material needed, the computer can search the vast Internet storehouse of facts and graphic examples and file them for easy reference. Even surveys, plans, and photographs can be scanned and computerized—to be recalled on the screen and enlarged, reduced, or edited at will.
As schematic studies progress, they too can be recorded for comparative analysis and optimization. The evolving schemes and resulting conceptual plan can be projected three-dimensionally for viewing from various angles. If so desired, the images may be modified by the planner to effect improvement. Or they may be supplemented with overlays showing perspective views of the actual project site and environs, along with design features such as walls, paving, lighting standards, ancillary structures, or planting. Concurrently with the visual comparison, the computer can provide running data on land and building coverage, area of various types of paving or ground covers, cubic yardage of masonry, soil, and so on—and thus the basis for comparative costs.
Computer visualization. Mia Lehrer + Associates, Wenk Associates, Civitas Inc., Tetratech Inc.
The advantages of computer use are manifold: not only in time-cost savings but as well in the scope of research material made available and the ability to organize and store it for rapid retrieval; not only in the ability to project, compare, and modify the schematic studies, but to test them for relative cost; not only to display the various proposals by screen, but to select the viewing points and to visualize the plans and spaces as by sequential movement through them.
The skill of drawing, that beautiful coordination between the hand, eye, and mind, is as crucial to making good use of computer graphics as it has always been to the design professions.
William J. Johnson
In the recording of survey information and in the dimensioning of construction drawings, the use of coordinates for property corners, outlines, and locations saves endless hours of calculation and drafting. Computer imagery precludes the need for slide preparation and projection—and makes obsolete the clumsy presentation boards and easels set up at public meetings. The printout of plans and text in various sizes and forms, with ease of revision, is another obvious advantage. As if these advantages weren’t enough, new capabilities and refinements are constantly becoming available.
What, then, are the limits to design by computer? The fact is that the valued computer cannot design at all. It is incapable of either perception or deduction. It cannot discern the personality of the client, cannot sense the character of the site, cannot know the feel of stone, wood, or water, cannot apprehend the wonder of a view. It cannot learn from experience or apply to the planning process the lessons of travel and observation.
Some would-be planners have become enslaved by computer technology. For them to sit before screen or keyboard is to go into a rapturous trance. It is to be hoped that with time they will recognize the computer’s role for what it is—the esteemed and highly efficient servant, but never the intuitive master.
The product of the site planning process is a conceptual plan. This is, in effect, a diagram of fitting relationships—of areas to structure, of area to area, and of all to the lay of the land. The land uses and their relationship have grown out of the program and site analysis. They have been explored in a number of quick schematics until the best fit is achieved. The plan has been tested and adjusted to minimize its negative impacts and to provide the most of those features that are desired.
The conceptual plan is a preliminary drawing—the concept without details or fixed dimensions, intentionally so, for in its detailed development, perhaps in phases, it is subject to change, refinement, and improvement.
Upon its approval by the client or other decision makers, it becomes the reference guideline in the preparation of detailed (working) site development plans and specifications.
Site-Structure Expression
If to design a project or a structure in harmony with its total site is a valid objective, it follows that the design expression would vary from site to site in accordance with the variation in landscape character.
To illustrate, let us consider a summer weekend vacation lodge. If built on a sheltered, rock-rimmed inland lake in northern Maine, its abstract design form would vary greatly from the form it would have if located anywhere along the wind-whipped coast of Monterey, California, in the smoky Ozark Mountains, on Florida’s shell-strewn Captiva Island, or along the lazily winding Mississinewa River in central Indiana. Forgetting for the moment the implications of a specific property, we can see that each of the varying locations suggests its own intrinsic design response.
It might therefore be a helpful procedure to classify a site according to type and determine the design characteristics suggested. Let us consider four typical building sites and the design features that they elicit.
Interplay of horizontal and vertical spaces.
Rigid property lines may be softened to relieve the sense of tight enclosure.
Consider carefully the scale of objects introduced.
A City Lot
Area is at a premium. The plan will be compact, of necessity. Space is limited. Plan forms will probably be contrived to expand the apparent space by the multiple use of areas and the interplay of volumes. Through ingenious plan arrangement even the smallest structures are made to feel spacious.
The feel of the city lot.
Cities, with their concentration of masonry and paving, are hotter in summer and colder in winter than the suburbs and countryside. The “desert” climate can be ameliorated by the provision of open-space preserves, parks, street planting, and private gardens.
The city environs impose a sense of confinement and oppression. Perhaps here embattled city dwellers will wish to entrench, dig their cave, or build their fort and feel secure. But more likely they will seek relief and release from pressure. If so, in their dwellings and gardens the hard, the rigid, the confining forms will give way to the light, the nebulous, the transparent, and the free.
City site. Alan Ward/ Reed Hilderbrand
Areas and spaces are minute in scale. Scale, both induced and inductive, is an important design consideration. An object well suited to the open field could be overwhelming in the cityscape. A giant tree, for example, might dwarf an urban complex, while a dwarf tree could give it increased and more desirable visual dimension.
City streets and pedestrian walks are dominant lines of approach, observation, and access. They are elements most strongly relating the dwelling to the community. The driveway throat and front entrance will normally be designed to convey a receptive cove quality. The relationship of the structure to the insistent lines of the city street becomes an important consideration.
In the city, a rock, a tree, or a single potted plant may represent all of nature.
Design for depth adjacent to street.
A city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness.
Aristotle
The city street is a source of noise, fumes, and danger. Plan elements adjacent to the street may well be contrived to provide noise abatement, depth, privacy, and security. Perforated visual screens or studded sound barriers have useful application.
Living space in the city may extend from property line to property line.
The city is, climatologically speaking, a desert of pavement and masonry. A city is often many degrees hotter in the summertime than the surrounding countryside. Design an oasis; make maximum use of breeze, shade, shadow patterns, sunscreens, and the refreshing qualities of water in fountain, pool, or jet spray. The climate may be further modified by air movement fanned or directed through pierced or baffled screens or across moist fabric, gravel, or other evaporative surfaces. In cool weather, heat may be introduced in radiant elements or by warm water circulated in fountains or pools.
Natural features—trees, interesting ground forms, rocks, and water—are scarce and therefore have increased value and meaning. They are no longer part of the natural scene but are now isolated objects to be treated in a more stylized way. Utilize natural features to the full, design them into the scheme, orient to them. Earth, plants, and water in the city may well be treated as sculptural or architectural elements. Since in the city all materials appear to be introduced, exotic plants and materials are appropriate.
City materials tend to be less rustic and more sophisticated. Because sizes and quantities are limited, richness of material and refinement of detail gain in importance.
Courtyard garden. © D. A. Horchner/Design Workshop
Surrounded by neighbors, one becomes an integral part of the community, a unit in a group of related units, an important part of the whole. Neighborhood character cannot be blithely violated without social repercussions. We are tacitly obliged to conform. To achieve a measure of conformity while designing a residential complex of individuality and distinction is a difficult art, mastered long ago by the Japanese. Their modular homes of stone, wood, tile, and woven mats are arranged tightly along their city streets with an artistry that produces patterns of infinite variety yet great harmony.
From the street to the farthest limits of the city lot, there is little room for the necessary transitions from the din of the passing street to areas for quiet family living. Designed transitions are a mark of the successful city house. The Japanese admire a quality called wabi that has application here. This quality may be exemplified by a black walnut with its rough, splotched, gray-green outer husk. With husk removed, the exposed walnut shell is seen to be a handsome, rich brown case of hard ridges in structural pattern. Cracked open, the shell reveals the walnut kernels encased in a membrane of delicate veining and fitted to the smooth interior chambers. Finally, the ivory-white kernel itself is a marvel of beautiful sculptural form. We may see in this example an inward progression from the unostentatious to the highly refined.
A city property has a fishbowl quality resulting from the proximity of neighbors. Privacy is a tacit design requirement in a city dwelling. A logical orientation of such structures is inward, to private gardens, patios, or courts.
Rural Site
Land area is plentiful. The plan is more open, free, and “exploded.” Although the specific site may be circumscribed by property boundaries, the visual limits may include extensive sweeps of the landscape far beyond. The scope of planning considerations is increased, since fence-line geometry, orchards, paddocks, even a mountaintop miles away may become design factors and elements. Our scheme must be planned to the horizon.
Rural site. Barry W. Starke, EDA
Freedom, with open view of fields, woods, and sky, is the essential landscape quality. We may logically orient our plan outward to embrace the total site’s best features and to command the best views.
The choice of a rural site would indicate a desire to be at one with nature. Make nature appreciation a design aim and theme. Insofar as possible, the natural environment will be disturbed or modified only to improve it.
Ample area permits an exploded plan, each element being related to the most compatible topographic features.
The major landscape features are established. Build to them, feature the best, screen out and de-emphasize those that are less desirable, and contrive structural forms in best relation to the natural forms.
The landscape is dominant (in character and mood). Presumably the site was selected because of its qualities. If the existing landscape character is desirable, it may be preserved and accentuated by the site-structure diagram. If alterations are required, we may modify or completely change the site aspect, but only in such a way as to take fullest possible advantage of the existing features.
Earth and ground forms are strong visual elements. A structure conceived in studied relation to ground forms gains in architectural strength and in harmony with the topographical features.
The pleasant landscape is one of agreeable transitions. In the planning of transitions between structure and site, intermediate areas relating structure to the land are of key importance.
Structures become elements imposed on the landscape. Either the site is considered basically a setting for a dominant structure, or the structure is conceived as subordinate to the landscape and designed to complement the natural contours and forms.
The rural landscape is a landscape of subtleties—of foliage shadings, sky tints, and cloud shadows. Our planning will recognize these qualities and treat them sympathetically, or they will be wasted.
In a rural site, one is more exposed to the elements and weather—rain, storms, sun, wind, snow, frost, winter cold, and summer heat. The site-structure diagram and architecture should reflect a thorough understanding of adaptation to the climate.
A rural site implies increased land area and greater maneuverability. The automobile and pedestrian approaches, important elements in our design, may often be so aligned within the property boundaries as to reveal the best site and architectural features.
Rural property has an expansive feel. Streams, groves, distant hills, all features of the landscape that can be seen or sensed, are a part of the extensional site.
Major landscape features are established; build to, around, and among them.
Structural forms conceived in sympathy with ground forms borrow power from and return power to the landscape.
The indigenous materials of a rural site—ledge rock, fieldstone, slate, gravels, and timbers—contribute much to its landscape character. The use of such natural materials in buildings, fences, bridges, and walls helps relate structures to their surroundings.
The essential quality of the landscape is the natural and the unrefined. Our structural materials may well reflect this naturalness and forgo high refinement.
Steeply Sloping Site: Unobstructed Inclined Plane
Contours are major plan factors. Contour planning (the alignment of plan elements parallel with the contours) is generally indicated.
Slope stabilization. Tooru Miyakoda, Keikan Sekkei Tokyo Co., Ltd.
The areas of relatively equal elevation are narrow bands lying perpendicular to the axis of the slope. Narrow plan forms such as bars or ribbons are suggested.
Sizable level areas are nonexistent. Where required, they must be carved out of or projected from the slope. If they are shaped of earth, the earth must be retained by a wall or by a slope of increased inclination.
The essence of slope is rise and fall. A terraced scheme is suggested. Levels may separate functions, as in split-level or multideck structures.
The slope is a ramp. Ramps and steps are logical plan elements. The slope grade is perhaps too steep for wheeled traffic. Access is easiest along contours. This fact dictates a normal approach from the sides.
The pull of gravity is down the slope. Our design forms not only must have stability, they must express stability to be pleasing. An exception, of course, would be those structures in which a feeling of daring or conditioned exhilaration is desired.
On the sloping plane, orientation is outward.
Use of the slope for protection.
On a sloping site the level plane is achieved by terracing, retaining walls, the supported platform, or the cantilever.
Imposed structures may hug the slope,
rest on a platform,
or stand completely free.
A structure imposed on a sloping site belongs to the sky as well as to the earth.
The sloping site has a dynamic landscape quality. The site lends itself to dynamic plan forms. The dramatic quality of a slope is its apparent change in grade. Natural grade changes may be accentuated and dramatized through the use of terraces, overlook decks, and flying balconies.
A slope inherently emphasizes the meeting of earth and air. A level element imposed on a sloping plane often makes contact with the earth or rock at the inner side and is held free to the air at its outer extremity. Where the element makes contact with the earth, the jointure is to be clearly expressed. Where the leading edge flies free, this airy union of structure and sky should also be given design expression.
The top of the slope is most exposed to the elements. The planner may exploit or create a land profile similar to the military crest of the artillery manual—an adaptation or modification of the slope to preserve or enhance the view while affording increased protection from winds and storm.
A sloping site affords interest in views. Site development to create richness of landscape detail may be minimized, for when a sloping site commands a fine view, little else is required.
Development of steep slopes. Robinson Fisher Associates; Robinson Fisher Associates
Helopad created on steep site. Barry W. Starke, EDA
The slope is oriented outward. Plan orientation is normally outward and down. Since the view side is exposed, the plan relation to sun, wind, and storms is of increased consideration.
A sloping site has drainage problems. Groundwater and surface runoff from above must be intercepted and diverted or allowed to pass freely under the structure.
A slope brings out many of the most desirable qualities of water. The play of water in falls, cascades, spouts, trickling rivulets, and films is an obvious plan opportunity.
Level Site
A level site offers a minimum of plan restrictions. Of all site types, the level site best lends itself to the cell-bud, crystalline, or geometric plan pattern.
A level site has relatively minor landscape interest. Plan interest depends upon the relationship of space to space, object to space, and object to object.
A flat site is essentially a broad-base plane. All elements set upon this plane are of strong visual importance, as is their relation one to the other. Each vertical element imposed must be considered not only in terms of its own form but also as a background against which other objects may be seen or across which shadow patterns may be cast.
Water provides the most level site. Gabriel Figueroa/Grupo de Diseño Urbano, S.C.
Horizontal walls accentuate the level site. © Charles Mayer Photography/ Stephen Stimson Associates
A flat site has no focal point. The most visually insistent element placed on this site will dominate the scene.
The level site adapts itself to the cell-bud, crystalline, or geometric plan.
Lines of approach are not dictated by the topography. The possibility of approach from any side makes all elevations important. Lines of exterior and interior circulation are critical design elements since they control the visual unfolding of the plan.
The dome of the sky is a dominant landscape element of infinite change and beauty. We may well feature the sky through the use of reflecting basins, pools, courts, patios, and recessed openings.
On the level site, the pit, the mound, and the vertical assume telling significance.
The sun is a powerful design factor. We may use it as a sweeping beam or flood and design in terms of light and shade. We may explore the myriad qualities of light and utilize the most effective in relation to our forms, colors, textures, and materials. We may dramatize cast shadow—solid as from a wall, moving as from water, sculptural as from objects, dappled as from foliage, or as a dark background and foil for luminous objects displayed against it.
A level site has a neutral landscape quality. Site character is created by the elements introduced. Bold form, strong color, and often exotic materials may be used here without apparent violation of the native landscape.
On the scaleless level plain, scale is what one makes it.
The site offers little privacy. The creation of privacy is a function of the plan orientation. Privacy may be attained by the focus of spaces toward screening elements, inward to enclosed courts or outward to infinity from viewing points on the periphery.
Third dimension is lacking. Third dimension in the ground plane may be achieved through the creation of earth or architectural platforms or pits. Slight rises, drops, and steps assume exaggerated significance on the level site.
The flat site offers no obstruction to lateral planning. An expanded scheme with connective passageways or elements is a logical plan expression.
The horizontal in harmony, the vertical in dramatic contrast.
A flat site tends toward monotony. Since interest is in structure rather than in the natural landscape, the structure should be enhanced and dramatized in all ways possible.
The horizon is an insistent line. Striking effects may be achieved through the use of low, horizontal forms (complementary) or incisive verticals (contrasting).
If we must use our earthmovers to create a new landscape (and sometimes we must), let us use them to create a landscape of topographical interest and pleasant and useful forms.
Flat landscape under the open sky is often oppressive and lacking in human scale. Scale is therefore easily controlled, from the intimate to the monumental. Human scale, if it is to exist, must be consciously created.
Where flatness equals monotony, maximize every topographical opportunity.
Other Sites
This same procedure of determining (by perception and deduction) the abstract design characteristics suggested by a given landscape type may, of course, be applied to sites of many varieties, including:
| The mountainous | The lakeshore |
| The windswept | The island |
| The snow-covered | The estuarine |
| The forest | The oceanfront |
| The streamside | The resort |
| The boulder-strewn | The suburban |
| The pastoral | The institutional campus |
| The pond | The business district |
| The waterfall | The industrial park |
| The river edge | The heavy industrial |
In planning any development or designing any structure in relation to a given site, it is helpful first to deduce the general design characteristics dictated by a thoroughgoing analysis of the existing landscape.
The inner city. OLIN
The mountain resort. © D. A. Horchner/Design Workshop
The urban waterfront. David Vadlowski/City of Vancouver
The lakefront. Gabriel Figueroa/Grupo de Diseño Urbano, S.C.
The forest. Robinson Fisher Associates
Site-Structure Plan Development
It can be seen that the forces, forms, and features of the total site exert both a powerful and often subtle influence on the schematic plan. In the refinement of the plan and the design of each component, their relationship to all aspects of the environs is to be further studied.
Outward and Inward Plan Progression
We must consider each function from the innermost point of generation to the off-site terminus. In the design of a home, for example, we would be concerned with the route of the small-fry not only from bed to bathroom to breakfast table but also from breakfast table to the nearest door, to play areas, to pathway, to school—all in a natural and pleasant progression. Or, in more prosaic terms, we would plan the route of refuse from kitchen to service area to refuse truck to street—all with inconspicuous convenience. The relationship of dining table to window to view involves enframement and development of the view to the property limits and, in most cases, beyond.
Conversely, each element or area must be designed as the logical conclusion of a function originating at the extremities of the site environs. Anyone approaching your property to make a delivery is subtly directed to the service drive, the parking space for the delivery truck, the service walk, the service entrance, and the storage compartment. By design, guests arriving for the evening are alerted and invited in, welcomed to the approach court, directed to the parking bay, and guided to the entrance door, where they enter to the vestibule and the hospitality of the inner home. This same inward and outward progression is applicable to the planning of any project, be it a sawmill, a recreation park, or a world’s fair exposition.
Expansion-Contraction of Plan Concept
Most site-planning problems can be fully solved only by expanding the areas of consideration to the farthest extensional aspect of the site and by contracting each problem to the minutiae of human experience and irreducible detail. For although it is true that an object or element must be judged in relation to all other elements with which it is allied, it is also true that objects can be fully appreciated only when they are experienced one at a time, in depth, and at the living moment.
Satellite Plan
As a total structure is conceived in harmony with the total site, so must each element or area of the structure be conceived in harmony with related site areas. In an elementary school, for instance, we would plan the kindergarten, its outdoor play lot, garden, and entrance gate all as one. The gymnasium we would coordinate with the game courts, equipment areas, and playfields. We would consider the boiler plant together with its service and storage areas. The auditorium with its approaches and parking compound, the classrooms with their related outdoor spaces, each element with its extensional site areas would be treated as an integrated plan complex. The overall scheme in diagram would thus resemble a solar system with sun, planets, and satellites.
Integral Planning
When a structure is imposed on a site, certain changes in landscape character are effected. It is important that these changes be controlled by the planner. Our elementary school is not just plunked down in a city block or in the midst of a suburban community. Rather, ideally, it is fitted to the property and conceived in harmony with the community with such skill that the new landscape created is an improvement over the original.
Integrated plan. Kristina Floor, FASLA, JJR|Floor
The best site plan is that which yields the greatest long-term benefit with the least total cost and stress.
For a lesson in relating architecture to site we may well look to the Renaissance planners. In the building of the magnificent Piazza San Marco in Venice, the architect commissioned to design the cathedral, or the campanile, or the Doge’s Palace, or the memorial columns at the water gate never conceived of his building or columns as design entities solely. Instead, he instinctively considered his works as integral parts of the piazza in terms of his proposed structure, which he conceived, from broad plan to most minute detail, in terms of its impact on the piazza and vice versa. Each planner not only designed that for which he was commissioned but redesigned the entire piazza and, in doing so, his city of Venice. Thus, and only thus, was he fulfilling his obligation to his client and his city. The secret of much of the charm and great beauty of European towns and cities lies in the conscious application of this planning axiom. Much of the hodgepodge and helter-skelter appearance of the American scene results from planning with seeming ignorance of and indifference to the existing environs.
How do we know whether our proposed installation is well related to its site? There is one sure test we can apply. We can experience it vicariously through the senses of those who will see and use it. At any stage in the creative process, from rough sketches to final drawings or model, we can by our imagination lift ourselves up and look down at the project with a fresh perspective. We can bring it alive in our mind’s eye. We can say, in effect, as we look down at the plans for a church:
“I am the minister. As I drive by my church or approach it, does it express those inspirational qualities to which I have dedicated my life? As I enter my study, do I sense that this space is remote enough to give me privacy for study and meditation, yet accessible enough to attract to its doors those who need help or counsel or those who come on church business? As an office, is it so located that I can direct and oversee church activities? Does this church that I am to administer have an efficiently organized plan?”
“I am the janitor. As I come to work in the morning, where do I park my car? How do the barrels of cleaning compound get moved from the service dock to the storage area? Where do I store my ladders and snow removal equipment? Did someone in their planning think about me and my work?”
“I am a Boy Scout coming to troop meeting. Are the walks planned to take me where I am going, or do I cut across the lawn? Some friends of mine are waiting outside. Do we have a place where we can rip around and blow off steam and maybe shoot a few baskets? Where do we put our bikes? Where do we set up practice tents? Where do we … ?”
“I am a member of this church, and I am coming to worship. Does my church invite me in? Am I able to drive close to the entry on a cold, rainy day? Where do I park? Is there ample room? After the service, is there a pleasant space adjacent to the doors where we may linger and greet our friends and welcome visitors?”
All these things are a part of church life and need to be arranged for in its planning. The function of any project and the relationship of building to site may thus be tested by an imaginary introduction to and walk-through by people typical of those who will see, service, and/or use it.
The process of site-structure plan development is a search for logical progressions and best relationships.
Rikiu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. “Not clean enough,” said Rikiu, when Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son returned to Rikiu: “Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time; the stone lanterns and trees are all well sprinkled with water; moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground.” “Young fool,” chided the teamaster, “that is not the way a garden path should be swept.” Saying this, Rikiu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn.
Kakuzo Okakura
We have discussed the importance of developing responsive site-project relationships. Let us now consider other means by which we may achieve site-structure unity.
Site-structure unity: yacht club, terrace, and restaurant have been planned to the natural ground forms, which overhang and command the bay. Boat slips are fitted to the protective ridge. The beach area extends the soft receptive wash of the harbor. Cabanas follow the natural bowl. The breakwater and light extend the existing rocky shoulders of the point. The parking areas are “hidden” in the shade of the existing grove. Such a simpatico feeling for the existing topography ensures a plan development of fitness and pleasant harmonies of aesthetics and function.
We may design the structural elements to utilize and accentuate landforms. A lighthouse, for example, is an extension of the jutting promontory. The ancient fort or castle extended, architecturally, the craggy top of a hill or mountain. Our modern municipal water tanks and transmission or relay towers rise from and extend the height of a topographical eminence. These applications are obvious. Not so obvious is the location of a community swimming pool to utilize and accentuate the natural bowl configuration of a landscape basin or valley. More subtle yet may be the conscious planning of a yacht club to utilize and emphasize the structural protective shoulders of a point or the soft receptive forms of a quiet bay.
Where site and structure meet we may well “structure” the site and at the same time “wash” the landscape over and into the structure.
Hideo Sasaki
Terraced ski lodges stepping down the snowy slope of a mountain, floating structures on water, light, airy structures fixed against the sky, massive structures rooted in rock—each draws from its site a native power and returns to the site this power magnified. Whole cities have been imbued with this dynamic quality—Saigon overhanging its dark river and slow-flowing tributaries, Lhasa braced proudly against its mountain wall, Darjeeling extending its timbered mountain peaks and towers into the clouds.
A structure and its site may be strongly related by architectural treatment of site areas or elements. Clipped allées and hedges, water panels, precise embankments and terraces, all extend the limits of design control. Many of the French and Italian villas of the Renaissance were so architectural in their treatment that the entire property from wall to wall became one grand composition of palatial indoor and outdoor rooms. These grandiose garden halls were demarcated by great planes or arches of sheared beech, of masonry and mosaic, rows of plinths, and elaborate balustraded walls. They embraced monumental sculptured fountains and parterre gardens of rich pattern or mazes of sharply trimmed box hedges. The integration of architecture and site thus became complete.
Unfortunately, the results were often vacuous: a meaningless exercise in applied geometry—the control of nature for no more reason than for the sake of exerting control. Many such villas, on the other hand, were and still remain notable for their great symphonic beauty. In these, without exception, the highest inherent qualities of the natural elements of the site—plants, topography, water—were fully appreciated by the planner and given design expression. Seldom, for instance, has water as a landscape element been treated with more imaginative control than at Villa d’Este in Tivoli, where a mountain torrent was diverted to spill down the steep villa slopes through the gardens, rushing, pouring, gushing, foaming, spurting, spewing, surging, gurgling, dripping, riffling, and finally shining deep and still in the stone reflecting basins. Here at Villa d’Este, water, slopes, and plant materials were handled architecturally to enhance both the structure and the site and superbly unite the two.
Alternatively, the landscape features of the site may be embraced by the dispersion of structural or other planned elements into the landscape. The satellite plan, the buckshot plan, the finger plan, the checkerboard plan, the ribbon plan, and the exploded plan are typical examples.
Ingenious water displays—Villa D’Este. Barry W. Starke, EDA
Just as the early French and English explorers in North America controlled vast tracts of land by the strategic placement of a few forts, so can the well-placed elements of a scheme control a given landscape. Such is true of our national parks with their trails, lodges, and campgrounds sited to unfold to the user the most interesting features of the park. Such is true, in linear plan expression, of any well-planned scenic drive or highway extended into the countryside. Our military installations are often, in plan, scattered over extensive land areas, each function—be it rifle range, officers’ quarters, tank proving ground, tent sites, or artillery range—relating to those topographical features that seem most suitable. For this same purpose, many of our newer schools are exploded in plan. Unlike the old three-story monumental school set on the land, the newer schools of which we speak are planned to the landscape, embracing and revealing its more pleasant qualities with such success that school and landscape are one.
Dispersion of plan elements.
The site and the structure may be further related by the interlocking of common areas—patios, terraces, and courts, for example. A landscape feature displayed from or in such a court takes on a new aspect. It seems singled out. It becomes a specimen held up to close and frequent observation under varying conditions of position, weather, and light. A simple fragment of rock so featured acquires a modeling and a beauty of form and detail that would not be realized if it were seen in its natural state. As we watch it from day to day—streaming with rain, sparkling with hoarfrost or soft snow, glistening in the sharp sun and incised with shadow, or glowing in subdued evening light—we come to a fuller understanding of this landscape object and thus of the nature of the landscape from which it came.
The landscape may be even more strongly related to structure by the orientation of a room or an area to some feature of the landscape, as by a vista or a view. A view or a garden may be treated as a mural, a mural of constant change and variety of interest, extending the room area visually to the limits of the garden (or to infinity for a distant view). It can be seen that, to be pleasant, the scale, mood, and character of the landscape feature viewed must be suited to the function of the area from which it is observed.
To the foreign visitor in a traditional Japanese home, one of the most appealing features of many is the use of smoothly sliding screens of wood and paper by which the entire side of a room may be opened at will to bring into the space a cloudlike flowering plum tree, a vigorous composition of sand, stone, and sunlit pine, a view through tiered maple branches to the tiered roof of a distant pagoda, or a quiet pool edged with moss and rippled by lazily fanning goldfish. Each feature viewed is treated with impeccable artistry as part of the room, to extend and unite it with the garden or landscape. The Japanese would tell us that they have a deeper purpose, that what they are really trying to do is to relate people and nature completely and make nature appreciation a part of their daily lives.
To this end they introduce into their dwellings the best of those objects of nature that they can find or afford. The posts and lintels of their rooms, for instance, are not squared and finished lumber but rather a trunk or limb of a favorite wood shaped, tooled, and finished to bring out its inherent form and pattern of grain and knotting. Each foundation stone, each section of bamboo, each tatami (woven grass mat) is so fashioned by the artisan as to discover, and reveal in the finished object, the highest natural quality of the material that is being used. In the Japanese home one finds plants and arrangements of twigs, leaves, and grasses that are startling in their beauty. Even in their art forms the Japanese consciously, almost reverently, bring nature into their homes.
In such ways we, too, may relate our projects and structures to their natural setting. We may use large areas of fenestration. We may devise our approaches and paths of circulation to achieve the most desirable relationships. We may recall and adapt from the landscape colors, shapes, and materials. We may make further ties by projecting into the landscape certain areas of interior paving and by extending structural walls or overhead planes. We may break down or vignette our structures from high refinement to a more rustic quality as we move from the interior outward. This is a reverse application of the quality wabi mentioned before. This controlled transition from the refined to the natural is a matter of great design significance.
If a building or plan area of any predetermined character is to be imposed on a landscape of another character, transition from the one to the other will play an important role. If, for example, a civic plaza and art museum are to be built at the edge of a city park, all plan elements will become more “civic” and sophisticated as one leaves the park to approach the plaza. Lines will become more precise. Forms will become refined and architectural. Materials, colors, textures, and details will become richer. The natural park character will give way gradually, subtly, to an intensified urbane character consonant with the planned expression of the museum. Conversely, if a park or wooded public garden is planned in a highly developed urban district, plan forms will relax and be freer and more natural as one approaches the open space. Such controlled intensification, relaxation, or conversion of plan expression is the mark of skilled physical planning.
As a logical extension of the principles of site-project unification the concept of site systems deserves special attention. The term implies simply that all site improvements are conceived to be constructed and function in a systematic way.
With few exceptions the natural site provides for storm runoff across its surface without causing erosion. The ground-stabilizing roots and tendrils of living plants knit the soils and absorb precipitation. The fallen twigs and leaves also form an absorptive mat to keep the soil moist and cool the air. The natural swales, streambeds, and river gorges of the undisturbed landscape provide for the most efficient storm-water flow, while marshes, ponds, and lakes provide the ultimate storage and recharge basins. Any alteration to this established network is both disruptive and costly. When the movement of materials is required, new storm drainageways must be shaped, and often extensive artificial storm-sewer systems. Usually, with the installation of roofs, paved areas, and sewer pipe, the amount and rate of runoff is increased to the detriment of the project site and downstream landowners.
Experience would suggest that artificial drainage devices be minimized and that the natural drainageways be preserved and utilized to the utmost
The least disruption of the natural drainage system should be the cardinal rule in developing land; however, some disturbance and change to the natural system are unavoidable. Nevertheless, the resulting changes in runoff and drainage patterns must be managed to “return” them to the natural condition in the surrounding downstream area as expediently as possible in terms of both time and distance, thus minimizing erosion and flooding. This practice, referred to as stormwater management, has become mandatory in many parts of the United States for most land-disturbing activities.
Much of what the profession of landscape architecture and this book are about is an approach to the planning, design, and use of land that produces the least possible impact on the land. Over the last several decades, this practice has gradually been embraced by the larger planning and design community and, increasingly, has become recognized by regulators, who have incorporated some of the practices into land-use codes and ordinances. As these practices have become more widespread, they have become known as low-impact design (LID)
While LID practices can include anything that reduces the effects of development on the land, the most common practices focus on the biological—or natural—systems approach to stormwater management, which is done by simulating conditions in nature. This includes the use of bioswales, bioretention or rain gardens, green roofs, and permeable paving, to name a few of the options. All of these devices are intended to slow and temporarily store runoff water, filter sediment and pollutants, and recharge groundwater in a more effective, efficient process than conventional stormwater management techniques.
Elements of low-impact design. Kongjian Yu/ Turenscape
Planned paths of pedestrian and vehicular movement that oppose the existing ground forms generate the problems and costs of earthwork, slope retention, interception gutters, storm-sewer connections, and the establishment of new ground covers. When such routes are aligned instead to rise and fall with the natural grades, to follow the ridge lines and ravines, or to trace a cross-slope gradient that requires no heavy cuts or fills, they not only are more economical to build but are also better to look at and more pleasant to use.
Well-designed walks, bicycle trails, and roadways also provide interconnecting networks of movement that ensure regional continuity; they are particularly suited to the type of traffic to be accommodated and take into account factors such as safety, efficiency, and landscape integrity. Materials, sections, profiles, lighting, signing, and planting are coordinated and designed as an integrated system.
Lighting
Site illumination does many good things. It provides safety in traffic movement and crossings, it warns of hazards, and it serves to increase security and reduce vandalism. It interprets the plan arrangement by giving emphasis to focal points, gathering places, and building entrances. It demarcates and illumines paths of interconnection, serving as a guide-on. With accent lighting, fine architecture or site areas of exceptional significance or beauty can be brought into visual prominence.
Proper lighting enhances the design. Belt Collins
Well-conceived lighting gives clarity and unity to the overall site and to each subarea within it. However, poorly conceived lighting can be discordant with a design, become a source of light pollution, or even create hazardous conditions.
Improper lighting is offensive and hazardous. Barry W. Starke, EDA
Graphic informational systems are closely allied with site illumination, since the two are usually interdependent and complementary. Street and route lighting obviously must be planned together with the positioning of related directional signs. Often, light standards provide support for signs and informational symbols. Signs, like lighting, are best developed as a hierarchy, each sign being designed in terms of its size, color, and placement to best serve its particular purpose and all existing together as a related family. When the system is kept simple and standardized, the signing gives its own sense of order and clarity to the trafficway pattern and the landscape plan.
Unity with diversity is the key to identification signs. Shapes, sizes, and letter forms may vary with the information to be conveyed. Materials, mountings, and colors are usually standardized.
Planting
Planting excellence is also systematic. It articulates and strengthens the site layout. It develops an interrelated pattern of open, closed, or semienclosed spaces, each shaped to suit its planned function. Planting extends topographical forms, enframes views and vistas, anchors freestanding buildings, and provides visual transitions from object to object and place to place. It serves as backdrop, windscreen, and sunshield. It checks winter winds. It catches and channels the summer breeze. It casts shadow and provides shade. It absorbs precipitation, freshens the air, and modifies climatic extremes.
Plantings articulate and strengthen site layout. PWP Landscape Architecture; Anidika Murandi / Charles Anderson
Aside from serving these practical functions, plants in their many forms and varieties are also pleasing to the eye. But even their beauty is increased if there is an evident reason behind their selection and use.
Fine plantings, like any other fine work of design, have a fundamental simplicity and discernible order. Many experienced landscape designers limit their plant lists to a primary tree, shrub, and ground cover and one to three secondary trees, shrubs, and supplementary ground cover—grasses, herbs, or vines, with all other supporting and accent plants comprising no more than a small fraction of the total.
Except in urban settings, the large majority of all plants used will be native to the region and will therefore fit and thrive without special care.
Essentially, each plant used should serve a purpose, and all together should contribute to the function and expressiveness of the plan.
Materials
Just as the palette of plant materials is limited in the main to those which are indigenous, so is it also with the materials of construction. Wall stone from local quarries seems most appropriate. Crushed stone and gravels exposed as aggregate, bricks made of local clays, lumber from trees that grow in the vicinity, and mulches made of their chipped or shredded bark all seem right in the local scene. Even the architectural adaptation of the natural earth, foliage, and sky colors relates the constructions to the regional setting.
The reduction of the number of materials used to a small and selective list lends simplicity and unity to the planned development.
Edging strips.
Paved mowing strips of concrete, set brick, or stone at lawn edges carry the wheel of an edger and eliminate hand trimming.
Operations
All projects must be planned to work and work efficiently. Each building and each use area of the site must operate well as an entity, and all together as a well-organized complex. This can be achieved only if all components are planned together as an integrated system.
From small-home grounds to campus, to park, to large industrial complex, site installation and maintenance costs can be reduced and performance improved by the standardization of all possible components, materials, and equipment. Use only the affordable best; therein lies quality and economy.
Maintenance
To be effective maintenance must be a consideration from the earliest planning stages. This presupposes that all maintenance operations have been programmed. It also assumes that storage for the required materials and equipment is provided, that access points and ways are strategically located, that convenient hydrants and electrical outlets are installed, and that maintenance needs are reduced insofar as practical.
It also means that the number of construction materials and components and thus the replacement inventory of items that must be kept stocked are reduced to a workable minimum. This requires standardization of light globes, bench slats, anchor bolts, sign blanks, curb templates, paint colors, and everything else. Usually, a reduction in the quantity of items stocked can result in improved quality at significant savings. This is possible only if the maintenance operation is planned from the start as an efficient system or is converted to one.