These drawings show what happens when you take an iPad, stylus, laser measuring tool, some good apps and hours of practice, put them together with design ideas and run amok. They’re mostly completed in the field, with a few minor touch-ups in the office. The pieces get put together into a single pdf file, letter size, so we have a record of what we proposed, with an initial design program and site analysis notes.
The laser gives a base plan to scale, drawn in a CAD app, exported to a concept development app, sketched, annotated and formatted to print on letter size paper. The original CAD file is archived in case the project moves forward to plan development on the desktop CAD system.
These concepts are a mix of experimental techniques in iPad apps and actual concepts done for clients. Or testing done over actual base plans, since testing apps is better done in the office than in front of a client! Once the new techniques are proven, we use them in the field. So far, they’ve sped the workflow a lot!
Sustainable living
This garden came from a native plant collector, so it wasn’t really designed for anything but walking through. There wasn’t even a good place to sit and watch the hummingbirds.
We reorganized the spaces, added a vegetable garden and places for outdoor living. We simplified the planting palette, massing the more successful varieties and removing half-dead plants (typically coastal natives from far away).
Entertainment
The house is almost two feet above the ground. Inexplicably, so is the large studio/shed in the back yard, so getting in and out is harder than it needs to be and space is lost with steps.
The solution to the looming shed was to add a low deck to visually drop the studio and link it to the main outdoor room.
Contemplative garden spaces occupy the corners, sitting at ground level. The multiple elevation changes separate the spaces and make the garden more dynamic.
Serenity
The owners of this property work long hours, so they need a place to relax when they’re home. This design adds a yoga platform and “secret” garden in a grove of clumping bamboo, a flowering meadow with asters, yarrow and grasses (instead of a sterile lawn), a vegetable area, a dining patio and multiple places to sit.
The spa, already installed, gets surrounded by a deck and decorative screen fence. There’s a new visual butterfly garden that can be enjoyed from the spa, the deck and an adjacent small patio near the vegetable garden.
This kind of work takes constant practice and adaptability since the tools change constantly.
Our main tool is quite flexible, giving a number of options to flesh out designs. It’s also quick to employ and exports pdf files ready to print. But it does not read or write high resolution CAD file formats needed to create plans – so concepts need to be exported, scaled and traced on high resolution base plans in the desktop CAD system.
Other apps let us take notes, annotate photos on site and generally put together concept presentations on site. We do polish things up in the office in a desktop publishing app, just because it’s easier and faster to assemble different element that way.
Speaking of high resolution CAD files, we used to have a good workflow where we produced them on site in an app we thought would only get better with time. Instead, the developer rendered it completely useless, removing the ability to accurately edit plans in the field. Huh? A totally inexplicable move and a nasty one considering that subscriptions can’t be refunded even if the developer removes critical functions! Needless to say, substitute app installed, subscription cancelled, bad reviews posted.