CAD in garden design

It started off in engineering, then moved to architecture and is now taking hold in the garden design profession. What is it? Computer aided drawing (or drafting or design), otherwise known as CAD. At Pure Garden Design we’re committed to the use of CAD but there are some garden designers who seem to feel that using a computer to draw somehow results in an inferior end product.

I’m never sure why that is - after all, you never drew an entire plan using only freehand techniques but drew on a number of artificial tools and techniques which had to be learned before you could generate professional looking results. Scale rules, protractors, compasses and the dreaded smudgy Rotring pens all take a bit of getting used to and can be very frustrating at first.

Even with CAD the drawing board still has a place in the design studio - even when using pressure and tilt sensitive pens on graphics tablets is still hard to ‘doodle’ with the same freedom that you have with a soft pencil on a piece of tracing paper. But, and it’s a big but, as soon as that basic design starts to take shape the computer now offers the best solution for developing it from rough shapes into a client presentation drawing and then on to contractors drawings, planting plans and so on. There’s a massive productivity benefit to gained from the ability to make comprehensive revisions to a project for a 5 acre site and re-issue an entire suite of contractor’s drawings in only an hour or so, and this also translates into being able to be more flexible with our clients while remaining cost effective and keeping a lid on the design fee.

Some of the reluctance to adopting CAD probably comes from the fear of going from the known, familiar environment of the drawing board to the unfamiliar and potentially frustrating environment of the CAD system. This is where effective training and support is so important, which brings me to the point of writing this entry.

We’ve spent a fair proportion of July engaged in CAD tuition, both Vectorworks and Sketchup. It’s not a service that we publicise too heavily as the practice’s main focus is on garden design, but we do get asked to help people now and again. These are usually ‘word of mouth’ type referrals, and are often people who’ve done an expensive CAD course elsewhere then not sat in front of their PC for months, so when they do come back they’re completely flummoxed by the program. Our tuition always takes place on the client’s site and on their machine, preferably using a live project of theirs as an example so that the work we do is of immediate benefit to them.

We also offer a post tuition support service - if anyone gets stuck or (more usually) frustrated about doing something a long-winded way we can use a remote desktop service to work with them to solve the problem. Again this is more effective than just emailing files back and forth as we can work on the problem together and we can each follow every movement of the mouse and every click, rather than trying to decipher a page of ‘help’ text.

There’s no doubt that in the coming years the use of CAD in garden design will follow the same trend as in architecture practices - Sir Norman Foster and Frank Gehry still do pencil sketches of their buildings concepts, but I bet there aren’t many drawing boards to be seen in their offices!

July already

Phew - 2008 is flying by at the moment. Here’s another update of some of our current projects.

The good news is that our project in Weybridge has now been fully signed off by the client and they have been in touch to say that the new garden is already getting complements from neighbours and visitors. The bespoke metal railings were the last component of the garden to be installed (along with the Hornbeam hedge that sits behind them) and these really were the ‘icing on the cake’. We hope to have some photos of the site in the ‘case studies‘ part of the website soon. This project was split into two separate phases, and the work just completed was the first of these - the second phase is loosely scheduled for late 2008/early 2009 and will see the construction of a formal terrace and lawns in the 1/3 acre site.

Construction has continued apace in Rowledge and the hard landscaping is virtually complete. We’re meeting the clients shortly to run through the planting proposals, though it is likely that much of the planting will be delayed until the autumn. We expect to plant up the area immediately around the house as this is the part of the garden that will be used the most in the summer (and is the easiest to maintain) with the lower terrace levels being left until later.

In Farnborough work is progressing well on our project at the sloping site, though the contractors are now getting a little distracted by the planes practicing their air displays for the Air Show!  At the time of writing work was focussed on the construction of the main water feature that will link the two levels of the garden - here’s a photo of the work in progress (below). We’ve also agreed the planting proposals with the client but, as with our Rowledge project, the client is keeping an eye on how the ‘long hot summer of 2008′ develops before committing to a planting date.

We’ve also presented our sketch proposal for the small family garden near Hook - the clients were pleased with our concept and we’re now moving forward to the more detailed design stages. We’ve also agreed the final concept for a front & back garden project in Sandhurst and we’re now developing the drawings needed by the contractors and will be meeting the client on their return from a business trip to agree materials and finishes.

A new beginning

Since our website first went live we have been publishing a monthly project diary to give a flavour of the work we’re doing, our design approach and our views on current issues. While this seems to be a popular page with visitors to our site it always took a fair bit of work to maintain, and as we’re not wizards at web coding it was tricky to insert any extra features into the diary.

As a result we’ve taken the decision to move the diary to a blog format as this will enable easier updating (hopefully more frequent than before) as well as making it simple to add extra content such as images or maybe even short video fly-throughs of some of our gardens. Other bonuses will be a full archive of all of the articles and the ability for people to add their own comments.

The first article on budgets is a direct copy of the last diary entry from the old page - this had already generated some interesting comments from prospective clients so we decided that it would make a good starting point for the new blog. We also used to give updates on some of our current projects but these will now be done on an ad-hoc basis rather than formally listing them each month.