Site-Structure Expression

DEVELOPMENT

T

he 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 neg-ative 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 devel-opment, 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 develop-ment plans and specifications.

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.

121

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. Forget-ting 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.

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 city environs impose a sense of confinement and oppression. Per-haps 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

122 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

City site.

Alan Ward

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.

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.

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.

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, obser-vation, and access. They are elements most strongly relating the dwelling to the community. The driveway throat and front entrance will nor-mally be designed to convey a receptive cove quality. The relationship of the structure to the insistent lines of the city street becomes an impor-tant consideration.

A city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness.

Aristotle

Site Development 123

In the city, a rock, a tree, or a single potted plant may represent all of nature.

Living space in the city may extend from property line to property line.

Design for depth adjacent to street.

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.

The city is, climatologically speaking, a desert of pavement and masonry.

A city is often many degrees hotter in the summertime than the sur-rounding 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 materi-als appear to be introduced, exotic plants and materimateri-als 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.

Surrounded by neighbors, one becomes an integral part of the commu-nity, 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

124 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Courtyard garden.

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 wal-nut 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 inte-rior chambers. Finally, the ivory-white kernel itself is a marvel of beauti-ful 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 log-ical 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 geom-etry, orchards, paddocks, even a mountaintop miles away may become design factors and elements. Our scheme must be planned to the horizon.

Site Development 125

Ample area permits an exploded plan, each element being related to the most compatible

topographic features. Rural site.

Barry W. Starke, EDA

Freedom, with open view of fields, woods, and sky, is the essential land-scape 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.

The major landscape features are established. Build to them, feature the best, screen out and de-emphasize those that are less desirable, and con-trive 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 dia-gram. If alterations are required, we may modify or completely change the site aspect, but only in such a way as to take fullest possible advan-tage of the existing features.

Earth and ground forms are strong visual elements. A structure con-ceived 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 struc-ture 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 comple-ment 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 under-standing 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.

The indigenous materials of a rural site—ledge rock, fieldstone, slate, gravels, and timbers—contribute much to its landscape character. The

126 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

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.

On the sloping plane, orientation is outward.

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 forego 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.

The areas of relatively equal elevation are narrow bands lying perpendi-cular 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. Lev-els may separate functions, as in split-level or multideck structures.

Site Development 127

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.

Slope stabilization.

Tooru Miyakoda, Keikan Sekkei Tokyo Co., Ltd.

128 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Robinson Fisher Koons

Development of steep slopes.

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 condi-tioned exhilaration is desired.

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 drama-tized through the use of terraces, overlook decks, and flying balconies.

A slope inherently emphasizes the meeting of earth and air. A level ele-ment 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 rich-ness of landscape detail may be minimized, for when a sloping site com-mands a fine view, little else is required.

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.

Site Development 129

Helopad created on steep site.

Barry W. Starke, EDA

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.

A flat site has no focal point. The most visually insistent element placed on this site will dominate the scene.

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.

130 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Water provides the most level site.

Mario Schjetnan, Grupo de Diseño Urbano, S.C.

Horizontal walls accentuate the level site.

The level site adapts itself to the cell-bud, crystalline, or geometric plan.

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.

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.

Site Development 131

The horizontal in harmony, the vertical in dramatic contrast.

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.

On the scaleless level plain, scale is what one makes it.

132 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

The inner city. The mountain resort.

Olin Partnership, Ltd.

The urban waterfront. The lakefront. The forest.

Robinson Fisher Koons

Mario Schjetnan, Grupo de Diseño Urbano, S.C.

David Vadlowski, City of Vencouver

Where flatness equals monotony, maximize every topographical opportunity.

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).

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.

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

In document Landscape Architecture (Page 141-153)