Driveway Ideas - Landscape Architect?
Nan Smith
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
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Nan Smith
3 years agoRelated Discussions
landscape architect vs. designer
Comments (10)Those are a lot of questions, but they are all very good ones that are not easy for people to find answers to. First, anyone who designs landscapes is a landscape designer. There is no criteria, licensing, or regulation(Oregon has some rules on what you can design without a license). There are horrible landscape designers, great landscape designers, and everything in between. There are landscape design associations and certification programs that are voluntary and try to establish a particular level of competency and professionalism. They also have dues and testing fees of its members which can make them a bit of an industry of their own in some cases. My belief is that some type of membership or certificate is better than none in that it shows some type of standard was met and/or a designer's commitment to becoming more competent and more professional. Landscape Architects are licensed professionals in 48 states. I believe it is Vermont and Colorado that they are not. The criteria for licensing is usually the same for most states, but there are variations. Typically, they require a candidate to pass a standard test called the Landscape Architect Registration Exam (LARE) which used to be six or seven sections that took three full days to take. It is slightly different now, but very similar. In most states they require a minimum of a Bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture from an accredited Landscape Architecture program (I believe there are about 70 such universities and colleges that have accredited programs) to take the exam. Then you would also be required to work full time for two years under the direct supervision of a licensed landscape architect before taking the exam. That is basically six years of education followed by a rather tough exam. Whether an LD is an LA, or has a certificate, a membership in an organization, a degree, or has been taught through the school of experience, it is a very diverse field where one individual may be very competent in some parts of it and not so competent in others much like a good pediatrician might not be a great brain surgeon. So, you can not assume that any particular individual must be able to do "X" because they are called a "Y". This does not make it easy for the consumer, but it is reality. Your excavator guy has probably put in hundreds of driveways and does a good job. The problem is that your world is more than your driveway and having the foresight to make the driveway work with the rest of your landscape is probably not in his repetoire. It may be that the way the driveway is laid out and graded will be just fine with what follows. But, it could be a very limiting factor in what follows. Design/build is where you may find the best financial efficiency since the designing part of the operation is what drives sales in the construction part of the operation. It pays for a design/build firm to sell design work below what a design company would charge. The reason is, and I say this from experience, that once you bring a client through the design phase, they seldom want to switch to another company for installation. That means a high rate of sales in installation (where the money is). The negative is that the designer is working for the best interest of the company rather than for you. If you hire a designer, that person is working for you. Should you retain the designer to follow through the construction of the job, the designer is obligated to monitor the job for quality control and accept or reject all aspects of the job and let you know when the contractors have met their obligations for payment. This can cost you 10-20% on top of what the contractors bill. If a job is fairly straight forward, you may not need or feel like you want to pay your designer extra to oversee the project. Not all designers want to oversee projects because it involves a lot of responsibility and having to stand up to contractors who can be pretty tough. A nursery designer usually is for the purpose of selling stock from that particular nursery. Most contractors make the bulk of their money by marking up materials that they buy from sources that work best for them. The nursery the designer is working for might not be amongst the contractor's favorite sources which will be a conflict. This often means that you are limited to a smaller number of contractors who routinely do work for the nursery's designer or the nursery has their own staff installers. What this all means is that there is no easy answer. You have to talk to different people to find someone who matches your particular circumstances. My suggestion is that you work backwards. Find a similar style home with similar circumstances that has had this type of work done to it that appeals to you in a similar economic neighborhood. Then approach the homeowner by complementing them on the looks of their landscape and then find out who did it and what their experience was like. This should yield someone who is capable, local, affordable, and reasonable to work with no matter their title or educational background. I am an LA, by the way....See MoreDriveway landscaping in Hudson Valley
Comments (44)I am sensing by your comments, NYC, that you are not quite getting the purpose of the sketch I offered, which is to inspire a direction, not to prescribe a specific, etched-in-stone solution. The concept is: visually obscuring the back door some from a distance, and using minimal signage, combined with a modified walk layout (which you are invited to improve upon,) in order to direct traffic to the front of the house. Once people are on the way, they will continue to the front door. The concept would be refined by working out all of the details of how it is to be done in PLAN VIEW, not in a perspective view picture. The measured plan view lets you know exactly how much distance you have from one object to the next, in order that you can place things properly. Regarding proximity of arbor to back door and the issue of impeding light entering the house, it looks to me that you have roughly 40 or so feet of space between the house and the parking area with which to "play." By the look of the sketch, I think I've plopped the arbor somewhere between 12' and 16' clearance from the house. In the plan view that you create in order to organize future work, you could place the arbor 20' from the house, if you thought that improved upon its placement. So I can't really grasp why you'd use light entering the house as an obstacle. The arbor goes where you put it. Where I put it, it doesn't even look like an impediment to light to me. Any nearby trees have a much greater chance of affecting light entering the house. In another, separate, picture, it looks like you have much less distance between the parking and house. One, or possibly both picture views, may be misleading as to what the real truth is. That's, again, why the actual landscape-work-to-done must be laid out in a measured-to-scale, PLAN VIEW. Regarding "framing" -- edging -- the drive or walk with shrubs and/or groundcover, I do not see why you think this is necessary or desirable. Well grown and tended grass, in the places where there is sufficient light, seems preferable. In the areas where there is not sufficient light, a low groundcover would be best ... not as an "edging" per se to the paved areas, but as a bed of groundcover that works on its own accord. If it happens to abut the pavement, that is not a problem....See MoreDeck & Pergola Design: Architect, Landscape Architect, Other?
Comments (5)My husband said that the superintendent mentioned stepping the patio down once or twice, but even if it's twice, it's still gonna be a massively thick slab. :-/ We've had "thick" concrete in the past (but not this bad), and absolutely don't want it. They didn't pour the patio with the foundation because the patio isn't post-tension like the foundation is. We were told that the (uncovered) patio will be poured when the driveway is poured... Closer to the end. Honestly, we're gonna ask if he can just pour a set of stairs, since he's stepping it down anyway. He said we'll discuss it at the pre drywall walk through. At the initial meeting, before anything was started, he didn't seem keen on pouring a 10x10 patio 2.5 feet thick, so if it meets code and is a simple change, we'd like to just put stairs there and tear them out later for a deck. Hopefully, he'll agree. Seems like it would save him time, materials, and labor, so I can't see why not, lol....See MoreLandscape Design / Architect/ Engineer Advice - Input needed
Comments (4)I would do an asphalt driveway. Plain and neat. No gravel and no pavers. For an upgrade to your curb appeal, consider replacing your shrubs. An awning (fabric or metal) over the front door and steps would look good and protect your entry way from rain and snow. Larger light fixtures would be more proportional. Pretty house and surroundings....See Moregardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
3 years agoNan Smith
3 years agoCelery. Visualization, Rendering images
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoNan Smith thanked Celery. Visualization, Rendering images
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