4.3 Design for rear of two story courtyard house

This project involves creating two CAD drawings, each for a landscape design in an area 10 meters wide by 13 meters deep. You will use GardenCAD software as your CAD tool to first copy a design prepared by one of our students for that site/space. When you have submitted that drawings and had it assessed, we ask you to create a design of your own for the very same space.

There are a number of ancillary projects for you to complete which can be accessed from the fly out menu. Do not attempt these until you have produce the two drawings mentioned above.

How to copy the drawing

The figure below shows a 3-D model of the house and the design space available to you. The space is located at the rear of a proposed two story courtyard home. Note that the computer model shown below (which has been created using 3-D modelling software called Google SketchUp), shows accurate shadows at the nominated location (latitude), date and time of day. In this example, the month is October, the time is 1.30 pm and north is to the right of the picture.

Here is a link to a movie which shows you how to use GardenCAD to begin the copying process.

Your task is to produce a landscape plan for the rear of the house on the left. The space is 10 meters wide by 13 meters deep.

The figure below shows one student's design for the space. Your first task is to use GardenCAD and copy that design as far as you are able. Here is a link to a PDF file that you can print out for copy purposes. It shows the required dimensions for you to copy.

Example

Note that at this early stage of your CAD learning, there is no need to be precise in placement of entities (lines, arcs, text etc.). The student who made this drawing would be the first to agree that the drawing is not complete, nor does it exhibit the usual accuracy found in CAD drawings. For example, if you look at the vertical white line in the figure below, you can see that it is not 'registered' properly with the hatching used to indicate brick paving. CAD software has the ability to snap to elements in the drawing to precisely lock entities to others in the drawing, but our buddding CAD designer has not learned to do that yet.

Errors

Don't forget to include a plant schedule in your design similar to that shown in the figure below. If you have taken our basic botany course, you will be confident about naming plants correctly. We want a code (or visual symbol), the correct generic and species names and the common name where applicable.

Typical planting schedule.

Note to garden design students at South Australian students at Urrbrae TAFE

Since you have not been party to the projects that precede this project, be aware that other students who are about to undergo this project, have taken the following courses found at the learning support site behind this diploma [http://gardencad.net/online]:

1.3.1 An Introduction to Photography of Plants in the Landscape
2.2.1 An Introduction to the use of Spreadsheet Software (Excel)
2.2.1 An Introduction to Botany (with an emphasis on plant nomenclature)
3.3.1 An Introduction to the use of GardenCAD software
3.4.1 An Introduction to IrfanView - image editing software

Before starting this project, do make sure that you have downloaded and installed a copy of GardenCAD in your computer. If you do not yet have a copy of GardenCAD, please contact us by email.

Showing a plant schedule - an alternative method

The figure below shows another design for the space and an alternative method of showing a planting schedule; in this case, the designer has directly indicated the name of every species used in the design using waht are known as leader lines.

Design by MD.

The importance of orienting your sheet for maximum display

It is important not to become blinkered about the orientation of your design on the CAD 'page'. The figure below shows the same design you are copying, but rotated through 90 degrees. It is sometimes easier to work this way as the aspect ratio of your computer screen matches the design space. Most users will wait till they get the geometry copied and then use the ROTATE command to spin the design (model) through 180 degrees.

Here we have rotated the model though 90 degrees.

Since the screen has a landscape orientation and most plans are produced in landscape view, it makes sense to experiment with this type of orientation simply by spinning (rotating) the design.

Your design for the space

Now it is time to use GardenCAD to produce a design of your own for the same space. The figure below shows an example of one student's effort to create a design for the space.

You may find it easier to use pencil and paper to make a rough 3-D sketch of your design ideas before starting out on a CAD version of your own design.

We ask that you use the MTEXT command to write a paragrah or two about the design philosophy you have adopted (as shown below).

Note that correct spelling in landscape CAD drawings (and hand drawn ones) is of paramount importance. The spelling of the term deciduous is incorrect here.

Another take

When you have finished the second design, email copy and your designs as attachments to an email along with your name and comments about your design concepts in the body of an email note to info@gardencad.net

Prepare a design for the adjoining property

If time permits, produce a design for the adjoining (much smaller) single story property. The space available differs somewhat from the previous example and measures 11000 mm wide by 10000 mm deep.

Task 3

Please submit this assignment in the usual way to info@gardencad.net

We will add more to this module at a later time inclusing a discussion of dimensions, scale bars, adding photographs of actual design jobs, photos of plant species being used in a landscape setting etc. adding your own plant schedule, creating the plant schedule in Microsoft Excel and pasting it onto the 2-D plan.