Garden Design Software - A false premise? (Long)
Pau...@my-dejanews.com
I gather the question of the "best" GD Software is a regular in this group.
For what its worth my views are:
1 The very term "Computer Aided Design" is a misnomer.
The *design* process is a mixture of problem solving and creativity: a folding
together of form and function to achieve specific aims in an aesthetically
pleasing way.
The better and more accurate terms in the engineering field are :
"Computer Aided Draughting" (CAD) ie souped up drawing packages
and
"Computer Aided Engineering" (CAE) ie suites of programmes which apply
predefined
alogrithms to provide solutions to engineering problems posed by the designer.
(EG Size of beam required to hold load) and then draw the calculated item.
Such programmes do a very good job of reproducing predefined (engineering)
items accurately and to precise scale. They do not do the designer's job of
defining the problems and selecting parameters for the solutions. They are
*functional* tools not *creative* ones.
Now Engineering (sorry to any engineers out there I am about to offend you)
is not the most creative of disciplines. How then can we expect a slimmed
down and simplified engineering tool to carry out the essentially creative
task of designing a garden?
2. The first rule of CAD/CAE is "Never draw the same thing twice"... in fact
don't draw it at all if someone else has done it before you....copy. [Amusing
aside: The second cave painter was a plaigerist!]
This gives the key to the main usefulness of CAD/CAE : The reproduction of
predfined geometric elements. In designing a garden we are trying to do
something different, to create something new.
3 To hope to have a package compact enough to run on a home PC which is
comprehensive and flexible enough to allow free creativity and which contains
an adequate encyclopedia of plants and their preferred habitats, yet is
simple enough for the garden and design novice to use and (most importantly)
cheap enough to justify itself on one design project, is an impossible dream.
There are some excellent packages on the market - for landscape architects
and costing many hundreds or thousands of pounds and requiring rather more
computing power than most of us posess but for the domestic market, forget
it!
4 Rather than spend £40 quid on a Computer package of dubious value and which
takes an age to learn, far better to spend the same ammount of money and time
on a couple of good design books. *Study* what they are saying and apply it
yourself. You will enjoy both the process and the result far more!
Almost any of the books by people like John Brookes, Jill Billington, Anthony
Paul, Robin Williams, David Stevens plus a host of others by lesser known
names would fit the purpose. Pop into Dillons and browse till you find one or
to that seem to fit with *your* view of a garden.
5 Better still (sorry but I do feel obliged to plug my profession) employ a
Professional Garden Designer! But if you do, don't pick one at random, select
someone who thinks about gardens in the same way you do and who will work with
you to produce *your* garden not the designer's latest toy!
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cbw
i agree with all you say except the part about employing a garden designer.
Six years ago we decided the garden needed a rethink. (it is 70 feet
long by 30 feet wide) We asked a local designer to call, discussed our
requirements with him and in due course received a very nicely drawn plan -
which didn't fulfil half the requirements. We tried another one - same
result.
So we drew an outline of the garden on an A4 sheet, made umpteen
photocopies and then started sketching (in rough) until we got what we
thought we wanted. (OK it took about a year to come up with a plan we both
liked !). We then scaled it up onto a sheet of lining paper and drew it
accurately. Just to make sure, we asked a friend to input it onto a "walk
through" design package. This was so we could view it from various angles -
back bedroom window, kitchen window, looking towards house from the bottom of
the garden etc.
Finally we had a local landscape gardener carry out the hard
landscaping. We have been very satisfied with the result, and it seems to get
better each year.
In article <6lrjm6$m71$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Pau...@my-dejanews.com writes
--
cbw
joh...@hotmail.com
In article <6lrjm6$m71$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
Pau...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
[snip]
> Now Engineering (sorry to any engineers out there I am about to offend you)
> is not the most creative of disciplines.
Engineering is a design process, and as such, is as creative as any design
process. You stigmatise yourself as ignorant by making such assertions.
> 5 Better still (sorry but I do feel obliged to plug my profession) employ a
> Professional Garden Designer! But if you do, don't pick one at random, select
> someone who thinks about gardens in the same way you do and who will work with
> you to produce *your* garden not the designer's latest toy!
Why not have a go yourself - the software will give you enough of an idea of
what your garden will look like without employing a 'professional'.
John
Pau...@my-dejanews.com
In article <6m8met$gc2$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
joh...@hotmail.com wrote:
> [snip]
> > Now Engineering (sorry to any engineers out there I am about to offend you)
> > is not the most creative of disciplines.
>
> Engineering is a design process, and as such, is as creative as any design
> process. You stigmatise yourself as ignorant by making such assertions.
Ah, but it stimulated a response! Actually though, you are right. In the
sense of my orignal, what I should have said was "Now, technical drawing is
not the most creative of disciplines" The engineering processes (problem
identification & definition, soloution development & analaysis etc etc)
leading up to the technical drawing are of course creative.
But the distinction you have drawn out just serves to emhasise my original
point that CAD/CAE packages of any form are *Tecnical* tools which augment
the creative thought of the designer and it is this that is missing in a 30
quid PC package.
> > 5 Better still ..... employ a Professional Garden Designer!
> Why not have a go yourself - the software will give you enough of an idea of
> what your garden will look like without employing a 'professional'.
But..... the drawing of a design is by a country mile the easiest and
quickest part of the design process. The hard part is developing the original
ideas. Ask any professional designer what was their most difficult design and
they will tell you that it was their own garden.... so many competing demands
and priorities... so many unachievable ideals.....
The designer's job is to filter the requirement of the client and match these
to the demands of the site and its buildings. Not so much in terms of shapes
on the ground or plants in the borders (the starting point for the amateur
designer) but interms of the 3-D spaces created. A design *starts* as a 3-D
construct in the designers head and is represented as a 2-D plan on paper.
The Garden CAD packages start from the 2-D...... I could waffle on , but I
think my point is clear.
I just spent 2+ hours this morning with a bathroom designer. Now I spend a
lot of my time sitting contemplating bathromms of various shapes, sizes and
designs, and am more than competent at the drawing board and had produced a
viable design (on my 30 quid CAD package!!). Yet the specialist skills of the
bathroom designer (OK also a salesman) produced radical revisions of my
outline plan based on his interpretation of my requirments and his knowledge
of bathoom functionality and aesthetics and of products available. The
resulting design is far better than my original amateur version. Exactly the
same applies in Garden Design. £150 spent on a morning with a designer is
likely to be better value than £40 and many hours learning to use a PC
drawing package.
Paul