The new industry standard on landscape architectural detailing

Detailing for Landscape Architects takes the reader on an educational journey across three major areas of landscape architectural detailing―aesthetics, function, and constructibility―to demonstrate how powerful design patterns can transform thematic ideas into awe-inspiring built realities. Richly illustrated examples accompany concise discussions of a varied blend of landscape design/detailing issues such as water movement, soil environments, articulating structures and construction assemblies, life cycle costing, sustainability, health and safety, and more. This book approaches the subject of detailing in a systematic manner, and provides a balanced framework for design and workmanship that conveys the essence of the built landscape.

Detailing for Landscape Architects shows how details can:

• Reinforce design ideas through the continuity and discontinuity of patterns
• Actively contribute to the overall form or geometry of the design
• Be designed to be durable and flexible while enhancing the entire design
• Gracefully accommodate the natural growth and change of plant materials
• Anticipate maintenance needs to minimize future disruptions
• Maximize their cost effectiveness through understanding their function while designing to meet those functions

Including chapters that apply detail patterns to the design of an urban plaza, a roof deck, and a residence, Detailing for Landscape Architects offers guidance on solving specific technical requirements, while preserving and enhancing the visual qualities that celebrate innovation, and carry forth a timeless quality of building.

Tom R. Ryan, FASLA, is Principal of Ryan Associates, Landscape Architecture and Planning. He has more than thirty years of experience as a practicing landscape architect, and has taught in the landscape architecture departments at the University of Pennsylvania, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Edward Allen, FAIA, has been a member of the faculties at Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has frequently taught as a guest at other institutions across the United States over the past thirty years. He is also the best-selling coauthor of Fundamentals of Building Construction and The Architect’s Studio Companion (both with Joseph Iano), Form and Forces (with Waclaw Zalewski), and Architectural Detailing (with Patrick Rand), all published by Wiley.

Patrick Rand, FAIA, is a Professor in the School of Architecture at North Carolina State University, where he teaches design studios, construction systems courses, and detailing seminars. He is coauthor of Architectural Detailing along with Edward Allen.

Landscape Architectural Detailing

Function, Constructibility, Aesthetics and SustainabilityBy Thomas R. Ryan Edward Allen Patrick J. Rand

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-54878-3

Chapter One

Aesthetics

Contributive Details

All of the details of a landscape should contribute to its formal and spatial theme. They support and embellish the main design ideas in a landscape.

1. Many details are associated with a style. The style may be the incidental byproduct of practical actions, as might be found in good vernacular design, or the intentional expression of a particular body of work such as the California Modernists of the 1950s and 1960s. The flowing concrete patios and walls, redwood decks and fences all contributed to the “look” of the modern gardens of that time. They were a departure from the symmetry and ornament of the Beaux Arts that preceded it, and the detailing complimented the new aesthetic. Styles in landscape architecture are not always as well defined as in architecture, but the aesthetic sensibilities of a time are reflected in landscape architecture as well as the other arts.

2. In similar fashion we can analyze the details associated with any landscape architectural style: Baroque landscapes, which used highly finished materials with ornate profiles that were unified in balanced symmetrical compositions directly contrasted with Contemporary design, where elements may instead juxtapose machined and unprocessed materials in asymmetrical unresolved compositions with overlapping forms.

3. Every designer of landscapes works in his or her own manner or style. It may not have a name, but it has a consistent personality, sensibility, or a guiding ethic. This personality or ethic stems from an approach to space, form, light, color, and to details. The style of the details must be integral with the style of the landscape. As a designer’s manner evolves and changes with each project, so must the details. The details must contribute their proportional share to the character and content of the landscape. For some landscape architects, a particular material or detail is the seed from which the landscape’s design grows. Even if not the source of the central design concept, details are the voice of the concept, the means through which the concept is expressed. They are evident in the earliest conceptual drawings and must be developed as the design evolves.

4. A landscape’s details should be all of a family. It will not do to copy one detail from one source, another detail from another, and patch together a set of details that function well but bear no visible resemblance to one another. The designer should develop a matched set of the most important details as an ongoing part of the overall design process. This set of key details should then serve to guide the preparation of every other visible detail in the project. Details may become related by sharing a common compositional approach, which may be evident in their proportions, materiality, alignment, and orientation.

5. Dissimilar elements and architectural palettes can also be joined. Special attention must be given to their technical and compositional compatibility. One paving pattern may spill out over another. The details of the edges are the key to expressing either a low-key harmonious transition or to accentuate the tension and drama of the contrast between two different patterns and forms. Landforms marching across a plaza should have an edge detail that makes it clear that the landforms are dominant and overlapping the plaza below as opposed to rising up from below (see A and B).

Timeless Features

Details embody all that we know from the past, they respond to the certainty of the present, and they will serve an unknown future. They should be designed with this broad time frame in mind, not focused too narrowly on the present.

1. Nothing grows wearisome faster than a trendy detail or material treatment. The longer the life expectancy of the project, the more timeless its materials and details should be. It is usually inappropriate to detail a park or institutional landscape which will have a long life in the public realm, in the fleeting fashion of the day. However, it may be appropriate to do so in a hotel or retail project that will be continually renovated to stay new, or for an individual’s garden where the aesthetic expression is personal and specific to the changing preferences of the owner. Well-designed details, made using durable materials and installed using appropriate workmanship, have a timeless quality.

2. Timeless details are more likely to be understood and appreciated by people in the future, much as good literature or music is appreciated by successive generations in a culture. A landscape with well-proportioned forms and spaces, a logical plan, and meaningful and well-made details will live a long time, almost certainly longer than the initial program. Owners in the future will become the landscape’s stewards, maintaining it, introducing new elements with care, and being respectful of its basic ordering principles. Such landscapes should not be made with features that become aesthetically obsolete in a short period of time.

3. To be timeless, a detail does not need to have been done previously, or selected from a catalog of stock solutions. Innovation remains essential. New details and materials will always be part of a landscape architect’s work. New details should be based on sound compositional principles, contribute to the overall themes of the design, have a grasp of the relevant physical phenomena, and should not waste human or material resources. If this is done, the details will likely achieve this timeless quality.

4. The means of production and “best practices” du jour often become a date stamp on the project. As industry introduces new materials and processes, or as new methods of construction are introduced at the construction site, eager designers explore their technical and aesthetic possibilities. Each designer nudges the envelope of authentic insights regarding the new material or process. Initial uses of new materials and tools are often ersatz imitations of their predecessors. Insight follows imitation: plastic was first used to imitate ivory products, such as billiard balls and piano keys; only later were the unique possibilities (and limitations) of plastics discovered. As light sources have become smaller and more energy-efficient, the design of light fixtures has expanded the range of lighting options tremendously. Detailers should actively participate in the exploration of new materials and construction processes, striving to distinguish between formal possibilities that are timeless and those that are merely today’s fashion.

Hierarchy of Refinement

When designing a project, landscape architects usually establish a hierarchy of importance for spaces and elements, reflecting the importance of each part of the landscape in relation to the other parts. The level of refinement of details within the project should be consistent with this hierarchy.

1. Important spaces are often finished and detailed more lavishly or specially than other spaces of lesser stature. The front entrance of an office building is more extensively detailed than the loading dock. Plazas and squares are more refined than the pathways leading to them.

2. Details that will be viewed at close range are generally more refined than those that will be seen from far away and may also be designed for tactile olfactory qualities. The details of pedestrian ways are inherently more intricate than of vehicular ways, acknowledging differences in distance and speed of the viewer.

3. In elements with layered forms of construction, the visible outer surfaces are typically detailed with much more refinement than those that are concealed within the assembly, where only technical issues are relevant. A concrete block backer wall that supports a veneer of brick or stucco need not be aesthetically pleasing because it will be concealed by a visible outer finish. See progressive finish, p. 180.

4. No detail should fail to meet its functional obligations and all details must be constructible, but the degree of refinement may vary in order to enhance the detail’s symbolic or experiential content. Some details are to be celebrated in the landscape, while others are quietly competent, functional but simple. Resources that are conserved in making the routine details are then available for the special ones. Pathways paved with asphalt and edged with simple concrete curbs can subsidize an intersection with stone pavement and decorative curbing.

5. Differences between details should be thought of as variations on a basic theme. This will make all the details part of a family, and will make it easier for the observer to detect the intended relationship between them (see A).

6. At one time, refined building materials were wrought from raw materials; stone details were carved from rough blocks; a squared wood column was laboriously shaped from a log with an adze and plane from a log. High refinement was the mark of a skilled craftsperson, bestowing honor and respect to the artifact. With injection-molded plastics, aluminum extrusions, and computer-controlled laser cutters, we can now produce precise, refined pieces with unprecedented ease. We may ask: How much precision and refinement is enough? If every surface and detail is equally refined, none is more important than another. Meaning is diminished when there is no differentiation of refinement. Architectural philosopher John Ruskin advocated in his Stones of Venice, first published in 1851-53: “There should be no refinement of execution where there is no thought, for that is slave’s work, unredeemed. Rather choose rough work to smooth work so only the practical purpose be answered, and never imagine there is reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by patience and sandpaper.” Our attraction to precision, crisp details, and smooth surfaces may be a vestige of the preindustrial and predigital ages, when the means of production made such refinements rare and expensive. Many times it is the rough and un-machined elements that are now expensive and rare. A site element can be detailed utilizing machined or rough hewn material such as the trellis above. The effect of the material choice is integral to the design. The detailer should continue to reserve the most special, custom-made details for the most important elements in the landscape, and make other details in a manner consistent in quality and cost with their level of importance (see B).

Intensification and Ornamentation

Details can be embellished to add to the visual richness of a landscape.

1. Since the beginning of civilization, makers of things have evidenced love of their work by adding nonfunctional elements to their forms. Weavers have added textures, colors, and patterns. Tile makers have added brightly decorated glazes. Carpenters have chamfered and carved their work. Shinglers have added scallops and sawtooth patterns. Masons have laid delightful patterns of headers, soldiers, rowlocks, and corbels in their walls. The results of these efforts are often very beautiful, sometimes because they bring out inherent beauties of material and craft, and sometimes because they are simply beautiful in the abstract.

2. If we examine an ancient decorated Greek vase, we find two sets of patterns painted on it. One set is made up of circumferential stripes and bands that were created by holding a paintbrush against the clay vase as it spun on the potter’s wheel. These stripes generally were applied at locations that were significant in relationship to the curvature of the vase—a change in the radius or direction of curvature. This practice might be termed intensifi cation, because it is purposefully related to the process of making the vase and to its form, and thus it intensifi es the vase’s aesthetic. The bands and stripes express the pragmatic and formal qualities of the vase. The other set of patterns consists of scenes of animals, warriors, athletes, gods, and goddesses—whatever suited the mood or mission of the potter. These bear little or no relationship to the manufacture or form of the vase, and might be termed ornamentation. Both intensification and ornamentation contribute to the beauty of the vase, but they sprang from different inspirations (see A).

3. Intensification and ornamentation have their places also in the work of the building trades. The carpenter’s chamfers reduce the likelihood of splinters along the edges of a post or beam, so they have a function to perform. However, they also bring the long, straight edges more prominently to our view, and their beveled facets add sculptural interest to the timbers. A chamfer could not continue into a joint between members without creating unsightly gaps, so carpenters developed stylish ways of terminating chamfers short of the end of the member, in devices such as sinuous lamb’s tongues or various angular notches. In the joints themselves, most of the artistry of the carpenter was necessarily concealed in mortises, tenons, and laps, but pleasing patterns could be created of exposed pegs and brackets. All this might be considered intensification, because it sprang from necessity but went beyond it to create a delight that enhances our understanding of the making of the building. If the carpenter went on to carve scenes or mottoes on the sides of the beams, this was ornamentation, because as attractive and contributive to the overall aesthetic of the structure as it might be, it was not directly related to necessity (see B).

4. The detailer should look first to intensification as a way of enhancing the aesthetic impact of details. The sources of inspiration are many: the need to put control joints into a concrete slab or stucco wall surface; the need to use form ties and rustication strips to create satisfactory surfaces of architectural concrete; the need to add brackets and bolts to connect members of steel or timber; the need to contain modular pavers; the need to install a lintel to support masonry over an opening in a garden wall; or the need to cover the gaps between fence boards to control sound and sight. Each of these is an opportunity to intensify the form of a portion of the project by such strategies as adding lines or moldings to junctions between planes, creating rhythms and patterns of fasteners or seams, exaggerating sizes or numbers of things such as bolts or brackets, or adding contrasting colors. Each such effort is a celebration of the necessary, a virtuoso cadenza, a sharing of the joy of assembling a landscape with the viewer, who was not involved in its construction.

5. Ornamentation can be equally as effective as intensification, but it requires more dexterity and judgment, because it does not arise from a specific, tangible feature of the project but is derived from some other source or is created from scratch. Often intensification alone is sufficient to carry the landscape into the realm of the special, and applied ornament can look superficial, even awkward or tasteless if it is badly done or is at odds with the intrinsic features of the composition.

Active and Recessive Details

Details can actively contribute visually to the overall form or geometry of the design, visually asserting its presence against the surrounding field, or it can recess and blend quietly into its surroundings.

1. A simple paver edge detail can be either active or recessive. A recessive detail may include a plastic edge restraint that contains the pavers below grade and allows the pavers to abut the surrounding landscape directly. A complementary paving pattern could be a simple field unadorned with headers (see A).

An active detail containing the same elements might also include a plastic or steel edge, but one that expresses itself at the surface (see B). A very active edge may extend above the face of the pavers to allow the paver surface to be slightly depressed below the edge of the surrounding landscape (see C). The paver surface could be further intensified with a header at the edge ornamented with an inscription or be enhanced by an additional decorative layer of stone or other contracting material.

(Continues…)

Excerpted from Landscape Architectural Detailingby Thomas R. Ryan Edward Allen Patrick J. Rand Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission of John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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