I don't think you are looking at the big picture. Many or most things in landscaping are some sort of balancing act, weighing trade-offs ... benefits in one place vs. benefits in another. Having a tree outside a window, several feet away, does not mean blocking a view. It means seeing a tree trunk. While I drew a multi-trunk tree in the other picture, it would not preclude you from specifying a single-trunk tree, once you weigh all the factors. If you choose no tree, I think you will help ensure that the barren, industrial look prevails, instead of things looking a little homier, with a sense of shelter and protection that a tree canopy affords. A tree helps a home look nestled in instead of being cold, hard and just stuck on top of the ground. From the complete left to complete right of the house face, it's a long way to go unbroken by any foliage. I dare say there are quite a few forum participants who would want the view of your house nearly obliterated by many trees with low hanging foliage! I am not one of them and strive to avoid covering or obstructing architectural features. But to leave the upper portion of the architecture entirely naked seems a move in the opposite extreme, as though one's criteria were of that of a shut-in who never saw the outside, and thought it to be unimportant. It's better to strive for balance.

OK, I found out today that those marked sidewalks are for joggers. Anyone can walk on them of course, but they are to encourage joggers to not run on the road, and regular pedestrians usually prefer leaving the marked sidewalks for the joggers. But the random appearance of which stretches of sidewalks have them, is still odd.

I think you are talking about exposed aggregate concrete. If you are in a snow area, they are a pain to shovel.

"But I also don't want it to look like a concrete prison yard ..." I don't know how literally you are worried about that. A prison yard is going to be plain, undecorated concrete without plantings along its edges ... and some weeds growing in the cracks. Given that you have a garage at either side of the house, and need access to the front door between the two garages, there's not any way to avoid a sizeable expanse of paving. And it would be a mistake to shrink the entrance walk beyond a certain minimal size, attempting to compensate for the amount of paving. But I don't think you need to worry about it looking like a prison yard because you can use a decorative paving, in a fitting sensible shape, with landscaping around its perimeter, and without weeds in cracks. Still, it's going to be a lot of paving -- because that's the layout of the house you built. To try to shrink paving beyond its functional necessity is only going to backfire. It will look bad simply for looking inadequate for the garage arrangement. So basically, accept reality and get over it. That you don't already have a site plan, you will need to create a simple base plan. That's rectangles for the house, a line for the road, showing the apron to the drive -- with everything in scale so it's an accurate representation of the space available for making the drive. This is just measuring in real life, and making measured lines with a pencil & paper. If there is no base plan, how would anyone communicate layout ideas back to you? It would be difficult to do with words alone, which is why your architect did not write an essay only in order to convey the home design to the builder. Something like this, but accurate... It would be good to show the property lines, too. (BTW, not having a base plan on which to try out ideas would go a long way to explaining why your are "drawing a total blank." You've got nothing to work with.)