Landscape design concepts (part-1)

Specification for topographic survey Property

Lawson farm and portion of Beeler Mill property.

General

Surveyor shall do all work necessary to determine accurately the physical conditions existing on the site. Surveyor shall prepare a map of the given a given area in ink on plastic drafting film at scale of 1 inch to feet. Four black-line prints of the survey map shall be furnished.

Datum

Elevations shall be referenced to any convenient and permanent bench mark with an assumed elevation of 100.0 feet.

Information required

1. Title of survey, property location, scale, north point, certification and date.

2. Tract boundary lines, courses and distances. Error of traverse closure shall not exceed 1:10,000. Calculate and show acreage.

3. Building setback lines, easements and right-of-way.

4. Names of on-site and abutting parse owners.

5. Names and locations of existing streets on or abutting the tract. Show right-of-way, type and width of surfacing and center-line of gutters.

6. Position of buildings and other structures, including foundations, piers, bridges, culverts, wells and cisterns.

7. Location of all site construction, including wells, fences, roads, drives, curbs, gutter, steps, walks, trails, paved areas, etc. indicating types of materials or surfacing.

8. Locations, types, sizes and direction of flow of existing storm and sanitary sewers on or contiguous to the tract, giving top and invert elevations of manholes and inlet and invert elevations of other drainage structures; location, ownership, type and size of water and gas mains, manholes, valve boxes, meter boxes, hydrants and other appurtenances, locations of utility poles and telephone lines and fire-alarm boxes. For utilities not traversing the site indicate by key plan if necessary, the nearest off-site leads, giving all pertinent information on types, sizes, inverts and ownership.

9. Location of water bodies, streams, springs, swamps or boggy areas and drainage ditches or s wales.

   10. Outline of wooded areas. Within areas so noted, show all trees that 

         have a trunk diameter of 4 inches or greater at waist height, giving

         approximate trunk diameters and common names of the trees.

 

   11. Road elevations. Elevations shall be taken at 50 foot intervals along

         center-lines of roads, flow line of gutter on property side and tops and

         bottoms of curbs. The pertinent grades of abutting street and road

         intersections shall also be shown.

  

   12. Ground surface elevations shall be taken and shown on a 50 foot 

         grid system as well as at the top and bottom of all considerable

         breaks in grade, whether vertical as in walls or sloping as in banks.

         Show all floor elevations for buildings. Spot elevations shall also be

         indicated at the finished grade of building corners, building entrance

         platforms and all walk intersections. In additions to the elevations

         required, the map shall show contours at 2-foot vertical intervals.

         All elevations shall be to the nearest tenth of a foot. Permissible

         tolerance shall be 0.1 foot for spot elevations and one-half of the

         contour interval for contours.

The conceptual plan

A seed of use - a cell of function - wisely applied to a respective site will be allowed to develop organically, in harmonious adaptation to the natural and the planned environment.

We have by now developed a comprehensive program defining the proposed nature of our project. We have become fully aware of all features of 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 other – 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 perspective 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 planning tasks and to aid in the articulation of the main design idea in all ways possible.