Our client had drainage issues in their front yard, along with a wish list: a fenced space for the dog, more outdoor living areas, places for vegetables, somewhere to park a small trailer, and a better entry to their home.
workflow: from measurement to concept
We talk to the client about goals. One of us tends to get input and throw out ideas while the other runs around gathering data with a laser rangefinder.
measure the site
In the beginning, there’s only a base plan, created from on-site measurements of the house, fences, trees and road location. More information on orientation and property line location comes from a plat map, if available.
initial design
Does the design fulfill the client’s wishes? Address style, function, safety, drainage? This is where area sizes get checked, balanced, evaluated. Finishes and surfaces are considered, rejected, replaced with options. Does it cover what we talked about at our meeting? Add back anything that was omitted – in this case, more lawn for the dog.
Add detail
Filling in spaces by how they will be used makes it easier to see everything and optimize the plan toward a solid concept. This is where compromises get balanced: protecting the tree vs. moving the wall, angling the wall vs. appearance, wondering how much buffer space is good between the angle in the facing road and the wall, in case someone misses the turn…
Add notes
Many people have difficulties reading two dimensional plans. It’s not something they teach in elementary school along with reading and writing, after all – unfortunately. Adding notes transforms an indecipherable plan into something actionable, the first steps down the road to realizing a project.
Matching the client to the concept
Discussing options is a large part of design, where you bring new possibilities to the table. This also means walking around, finding problems and opportunities, looking in the house for design clues and exterior views.
Client’s goals
Create a parking space for a trailer in the front, make the porch/landing area safer and more appealing, bring more light into the house, build a wall to block headlights from cars coming down a nearby street, fence in the front yard to keep the dog in and create more spaces, add vegetable planters, deal with drainage issues
themes for front yard
Our solutions
Use the trailer as an entertainment hub to anchor a new front yard patio space. We chose a trailer with a kitchen, opening side windows, seating – everything a garden hangout needs. And it comes in cool, mid-century modern colors to go with the house!
The entry landing was too narrow, creating a tripping hazard. The solutions were to brighten up the space with skylights, build a large entry deck to match the deck in the back yard.
The front wall/screen needed to be interesting and fit into the mid-century modern feel of the house. Something purely utilitarian would not do! We inserted strategically placed breeze blocks at the pedestrian entry, sketched three kinds of metal gates for people, regular vehicular access and occassional access and added metal address numbers with lighting. We added notes on how the gates could look and operate
Although it wasn’t on their list, we mentioned adding the same porcelain tile they plan to use on the home’s fireplace to proposed raised planters at the entry to further unify the interior and exterior design.
how could this have been done remotely?
Our ideas came about from poking around the house, looking out windows, walking up and down the front entry area and thinking. What would improve the spaces? What style is best, and how can it be created? What design gems are hiding in plain sight (like that box of sample tiles on the table…)
remote design? how?
We see a lot of advertisements for companies that make everything sound so easy. Just say what you want, get some kind of base plan to the company, and they will do the rest. Seems too easy! Yet, I wonder if that’s the way things are going: just push a button, arrange financing and your new landscape will appear from a cloud of dust, perfect in every detail.
I’ve read online design company’s descriptions, but always come away with questions relating to customization, quality, workflow… It seems there are a lot of things that really need boots on the ground to get good information, a solid starting point derived from real conditions.
how do you get a good base plan from far away?
When we do a base plan, it either comes from a professional surveyor or, if it’s a smaller, flat site, we measure with a laser rangefinder. When we use our measurements, we overlay our data with property lines from the local planning agency, where possible. We know the thing is accurate either way.
We don’t use satellite photos: they are often out of date and only show the roof – or if they’re taken in summer, they don’t even show that. Property line data does not accurately show structures. But it seems that people are designing from web based data. I’d like to know how to get window, door and wall dimensions when all you can see is the roof and perhaps the building’s position on the property. But there they are on social media ads, making it look like it’s all ready to go.
We’ve tried working with client-supplied base plans. Sometimes they’re great. Others, not so much. And when the base plan is off, it’s a lot harder to transfer a design from paper to construction. Square footage will be off, affecting plant quantities, surfaces, material quantities… things that change project cost, either positively or negatively.
It’s not like you can just fire up a robot on the site and do the measurements just like you’re in a teleconference with the ability to move. It’s either do what you can from aerial data or get someone qualified to measure for you. At least for now. There are 3D scanners that are quite incredible, but also extremely expensive. Maybe some day there will be measurement drones with AI that can just fly around a site and do this work quickly and precisely. But by then maybe machines will just print the design on site from base materials…
What about design expertise?
The ads also show people just picking things out of a “grab bag”: a hot tub, deck, pool, shade structure, outdoor kitchen… Who puts these things together into something wonderful? Who advises people about costs? Pulling things off a wish list is one thing, but actually paying for all those goodies is something entirely different.
Who is designing your project, and will you be able to discuss ideas? Will you just get a concept plan with some nice graphics, or will you get to dig into the thing beyond choosing items from a list?
How much regional knowledge to these people have (assuming they’re not AIs). This is obviously relevant for plants, but it’s also relevant for catalog items, concrete colors, stone… much of a design varies by region. Or you can just ship heavy items across the country at your cost – but that does not seem like a wise use of your cash.
Competitive bidding? Installation?
The companies seem to be one-stop shops, design and build. But the companies seem nationwide. Will you get the best contractor for your project? And what if you want competitive bids to make sure the quoted price is within your local price range?
Ideally, a web-based contractor would need several crews to serve each of their regions to minimize wait times. Where would these crews come from and who would supervise them? Would the designer still be around to deal with the inevitable surprises inherent in landscape construction, or would that become the property owner’s new task?