LA120 Fall 2024 Final Project

A Topo Plan that Elevates

What are GRADING PLAN GRAPHICS?

“There are two basic types of grading plan. The first is the conceptual grading plan that communicates the design intent but is not usually an accurate or engineering representation of the ground form (Figure 1). The audience for this plan is normally the client, who maybe an individual, an architect, or a public agency, and its purpose is to make the proposed concept easily understandable. The second is the grading plan executed as part of a set of construction documents (Figure 2). The purpose of this plan is to interpret accurately the design intent and communicate this information effectively to the grading contractor. The plan, in conjunction with the technical specifications, must provide complete instructions concerning the nature and scope of the work to be performed as well as a solid basis for estimating the cost involved. The success of a project depends on the accuracy, completeness, and clarity of the construction drawings.” (Storm, 2012, P108, AKA your textbook)

In this class, we have learned the essential skills of reading, calculating, and drawing topographic forms. In other words, we have learned how to grade. It is time to implement your thoughts and skills into your design works. Use the grading mind, topographic plans, and other thinking and representation skills to not only make the design more complete but also help you reflect on the design itself. This rational review draws your attention to the previously neglected that can improve your design and trigger innovative solutions that could then become the design. Grading is not an add-on feature of landscape architecture, it is not a something you can “figure out later” or “let the civil engineers do it”. GRADING IS DESIGN. Earth is always your most important media if not the only media, either covered or exposed, planted or remove. “Practical” is not always pleasant to the ears of the design students, who may (as I did) interpret it as banal or compromising. Building a livable space, or even just thinking about achieving a livable design on the human scale, is a considerable achievement and a basic responsibility of landscape architects at the same time. The grading training gives your design roots to the ground and brings it one step further into reality. To those guest critics who always say, “You can never build that in real life,” the grading will prove them wrong (or not 100% right).

The goal of this practice is not to steal civil engineers’ jobs nor provide the most legible grading plan for site construction but simply generate a “Topo Plan” as a tool to represent your design’s topographic condition and its rational foundations to your proposed function and programs. Also, use it as a design method and integrate the grading into the design reflections. We aim at this process of acknowledging and reducing the discrepancy between great design and great practice. With the traditional two-dimensional media and the legacy of grading plans, we will consider preparing a more descriptive plan that penetrates the viewer’s pictorial perception with the topographic form. rather than a beautiful rendering with mere colors and shapes hanging on the wall.

Site Selection:

Pick one of your design works from the previous or current design studios that you want to develop further with more grading thinking. The site should ideally be smaller than 12,000 sqft to sustain enough human-level grading details. Therefore, it could be a small part of your design from a larger planning work that you can develop.

You can not make up a project for the final project; you must own and know this project to a certain degree and be able to generate a spatial understanding with better resolution. We hope the process and the outcome can help you improve your design and even find ways to your portfolios or your studio's presentations.

Scope and Representation:

1.  Basic slope analysis on proposed surfaces.

2.  Overall water drainage, show the diversion of water from significant built elements.

3.  Pedestrians or vehicular accessibility. Consider ADA, stairs, ramps and parking design.

4.  Existing and proposed contour lines or other representations of topographic change.

5.  Cut and fill analysis, diagrammatic or statistic.

6.  Tree protection/removing or siting building.

7.  Other features you’s like to represent.

Deliverables and Participations:

1. (60%) Drawings, a plan of the design area, and supplementary sections if needed.

On Paper only. Even today, with all the modern spectacles and technologies, we shouldn’t stop investigating the two-dimensional platform. This has little to do with preserving the traditional media but more about the reception of information in the most direct way. Consider your drawing a tool or document one can fold/roll and carry around. The information is clear and concise as soon as it’s  pulled out. No headset, no goggles, no model assemblage, no mouse dragging on one lap while standing with the other leg. Unfolding the paper means unfolding the topographic form. of the site.

      2. (20%) A reflection note: How does the process of composing the Topo Plan

change your design and thinking?

I know you are probably reading this a week or a day before the due date to fulfill the requirement,but this page is not for me. If the course is too practical and boring compared to the other courses offered by the department, this reflection is a perfect chance to help you synthesize your beautiful design concepts with actual human (or whatever you are designing for) experience. Is the process a compromise or an improvement? Why does it (or not) change your design? What should betaken into consideration in the future? This reflection offers you an embodied perception of your own design and design thinking; please spend enough time thinking and drafting.

3. (20%) The lecture series and workshop (or field trip)

In the last 4 weeks of semesters, the three weeks of final project workshops will offer a series of lectures and desk critique opportunities. Attendance is mandatory.

Schedule:

The teaching team has to approve your Site Selection by November 1th November 15, WEEK 12: Final Project Workshop

November 22, WEEK 13: Final Project Workshop

November 29, WEEK 14: THANKSGIVING BREAK (NO CLASS) December 6, WEEK 15: Final Project Workshop

December 13, WEEK 16: RRR Week. Final Project Due.