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designer and site

5/12/2014

     Unless you are designing a demountable temporary structure capable of erection on any site, then the nature of the site is one of the few constants in any architectural programme. Other fundamentals like, for example, the brief, or the budget may well change as the design progresses, but generally the site remains as one of the few fixed elements to which the designer can make a direct response. Just as an architect may establish quite early in the design process an ‘image’ of his building’s organisation and appearance, so must an image for the site be constructed concurrently so that the two may interact.

     An understanding of the site and its potential suggests an analytical process before the business of designing can get under way. There are obvious physical characteristics like contour and climate, for example, which may stimulate the designer’s creative imagination but first it is imperative to comprehend the ‘sense of place’ which the site itself communicates. It is necessary therefore, to have some understanding of the locality, its history, its social structure and physical patterns or ‘grain’, so that the form and density of your proposed interventions are appropriate. This is best achieved by observation and sketching on site as is the less problematic recording of the site’s physical characteristics. How for instance will the site’s topography suggest patterns of use? Is the utility of concentrating activity on the level areas of the site overridden by concerns for maintaining mature planting or avoiding overshadowing, for example? Are gradients to be utilised in generating the sectional organisation of the building? How will the building’s physical form respond to and moderate the climate? Is it important to maintain existing views from the site or will the building construct its own inward-looking prospect? How is access to the site to be effected and how can the placing of buildings on the site reduce roads and site works to a minimum whilst at the same time allowing for easy circulation of people and vehicles? How do site access points respond to an existing infrastructure of vehicular and pedestrian routes? Where are existing services to the site located? Such a survey need not be exhaustive to prompt a designer’s key site responses. These in turn will be reappraised and modified along with other decisions as the design progresses.

     During these initial explorations it is advisable to draw the site and outline building proposals to scale so that relative sizes of the site and major building elements may be absorbed early on in the design process. In this way it is possible even at this stage to test the validity of basic design decisions and whether there exists a fundamental harmony between the site and the proposed buildings which it is to accommodate.

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