Fall Term

Design Practice I — Fall Term

In the fall term following the fall orientation trip, each student is assigned an individual client selected from property owners in nearby communities who have contacted the school requesting site design and planning services. The site is chosen only if it provides an opportunity to address a full spectrum of site issues and not merely a planting plan.

Topographic surveying is the main focus of the the first two weeks after the fall orientation trip. Students learn how to create base maps of their fall project sites that include locations of all the major site features, as well as contours that reveal the lay of the land. In addition, the process of surveying helps students learn how to read the landscape and make better use of maps and other design tools.

Although the focus is on a small area, the residential project is never simple. Students learn design principles through application of a problem-solving process. This involves eliciting and interpreting client needs, developing a proposal for design services, analyzing and assessing site conditions, researching legal constraints, conceptualizing design solutions, and developing specific plans and recommendations.

Beginning with the fall term—and continuing throughout the year—students present weekly their progress on the project before faculty and classmates. These presentations provide an opportunity to integrate their growing understanding of site conditions with new skills in graphic representations and oral articulation. Both faculty and students respond to each presentation with critiques and recommendations.

Near the end of the term, students formally present preliminary designs to their clients and three guest critics. The comments received help refine the final design plan, which students complete and present to their clients by the end of the fall term. Projects are completed when student, faculty, and clients are satisfied that the objectives stated in the proposal have been met and the products—drawings and design recommendations—approach professional standards.

The classes held during the fall term, at the school and in the field, introduce and reinforce the professional skills necessary to complete the residential design project. Click here to see a fall term slideshow.

Residential projects are varied and challenging:

In Conway, a couple purchased a six-acre abandoned gravel pit; they wanted to know whether their retirement home could be sited here, and how the site might be restored to a healthy ecosystem.
In Shelburne Falls, the owners of a tiny, terraced lot, tucked between the road and the Deerfield River, needed help with collapsing retaining walls and gaining safe access to the river.
An historic farmstead in Northfield was the childhood home of a single mother; maintaining the historic image while protecting her five children from a busy arterial road, and determining ways to reduce taxes and provide income without selling the land, were two of many site challenges.