198 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



mass ; and they may serve as they are fitted to serve — being archi- 

 tectural and so necessarily interesting objects — as dominant units in 

 their own subordinate compositions. (See Drawing XXV, opp. p. 196.) 

 Where some actual or apparent use of the pleasure structure is the 

 first consideration — shelter or shade, for instance — and where no 

 considerable architectural effect is desired, as often in a naturalistic 

 design, the shelter may be made very much a part of its wilder sur- 

 roundings. (See Drawing XXVI, opposite.) The roof may be thatched, 

 the supporting posts left rough, or even with the bark on ; the whole 

 structure may be covered and concealed with vines. A greater de- 

 parture from architectural form is permissible in such shelters, because 

 they have an unimportant and somewhat temporary look, and a light- 

 ness of imaginative touch is not out of place in their design ; to some 

 extent this is true too of more architectural forms. Many of the lattice- 

 work shelters of the French gardens are frankly stage scenery or at any 

 rate flights of irresponsible fancy, and, in their place, they are for that 

 very reason a needed factor in the formal design as a whole. 

 Terraces ^^ his articulation of the area-units of a formal scheme, the terrace 



offers to the landscape designer opportunities of arrangement provided 

 by no other form. It is in itself a definite and segregated unit, but it is 

 segregated without being entirely inclosed. Its retaining wall or bank 

 is a boundary between it and the adjacent area, but from its greater 

 elevation the terrace commands a view over at least the adjacent area 

 and perhaps much farther afield. A terrace is in its effect an architec- 

 tural object of simple shape, and is particularly fitted to serve as a base 

 to structures of still greater architectural interest. Accordingly a 

 terrace often serves as a base for a building, and as an outdoor area 

 dominating a view. It should normally have a definite boundary 

 on all sides. If the terrace runs completely around a building, or, 

 what is much more commonly the case and more usually desirable, 

 if it stops against a projecting wing or wall, it is thus given com- 

 pleteness of form. The proportions of a terrace on which a building 

 stands will usually be determined by the three functions which we 

 have mentioned. Its surface will be proportioned to the mass of the 

 building, and to such uses as are actually made of it, as parterre, or 

 tea-terrace, or whatever else. Its width will further be fixed by how 



