Part II 

 NOTES ON PROCEDURE IN DESIGN 



The client — Topographic data — Design — Representation of design — 

 Models — Pictures and plans — Written statements — Verbal directions and 

 explanations — Series of drawings for a landscape job — An example of rep- 

 resentation of design : presentation of landscape plans — Superintendence : 

 of construction — Of maintenance. 



The landscape architect starting upon a new design — of a private 

 estate for instance — has first to familiarize himself with two impor- 

 tant governing circumstances : the cHent, his means, mode of Hfe, per- 

 sonaHty, and desires ; and the location, its shape, topography, soil, 

 exposure, vegetation, and all the thousand physical characteristics 

 which will make certain kinds of design desirable and others impossible. 

 The Client The landscape architect should remember that he is seldom called 



in primarily to express his own ideas, but rather to interpret and ex- 

 press the client's half-formed desires in a way which the client has 

 neither the artistic training nor the technical skill to do for himself.* 

 The client is likely to be uncommunicative at first as to the amount he 

 Is willing to spend, or perhaps to set as a limit a smaller sum than that 

 which he really would devote to the construction If he were convinced 

 It were what he actually desired. The client Is unlikely, without some 

 persuasion, to discuss at much length the customs and particular re- 

 quirements of his family; In fact he often will not realize the effect 

 these should have upon the design. It often happens moreover that 

 the client means to take up on his new property a more expensive 

 mode of life than that to which he has been before accustomed, and he 

 does not himself know what his future desires will be. It Is very Im- 

 portant, therefore, that the landscape architect should familiarize hlm- 



* Cf. Chapter II, p. 15-16 and Chapter VI, p. 86. 

 338 



