Validate a Landscape Design?

In the fall of 2008 I became intrigued with the idea of validating landscape designs.  In other words, how do you make sure a design will work for a client before actual construction begins.  When landscape designers present their design ideas to clients, they use various tools that depict or represent how the design will look.  They have plan views, drawings, elevations, material samples, computer-enhanced digital photos, and other tools that help the client picture the design result.  My thoughts were directed at a deeper level of representation.  What could you use to portray the actual experience that a design might create?

Virtual reality seemed to be one possible solution.  At a practical, affordable level it fell short of my expectations.  The desktop computer software packages that offer 3D virtual renderings only really provided another way of depicting what the design would look like.  There was no way to step into the design and experience it.

Looking into other disciplines such as interior design and architecture offered some ideas of how of perform validation with a client early in the design phase.  They each offered a different perspective on analyzing a clients needs and synthesizing those into design concepts.  They also each provided some tools and techniques that linked the needs to the concepts thus creating validation feedback.

At the most basic level, any attempt to validate a design has to be preceded by capturing the client’s needs.  This includes even those needs the client does not express or even know that they have.  Client needs gathering is an art form in itself.  The designer needs people skills to deal with client.  They need to make the client comfortable enough to talk about and describe what they want.  They need the questioning skills to draw out the client and explorer areas that may be unclear.  The designer should also have good observation skills.  Aside from analyzing the client’s site, the designer may learn a lot from observing the client, their home, their décor, there lifestyle, and other visual clues.

The concept of validating a Landscape Design has turned into an on-going research project.  I hope to refine my ideas into a useful set of tools or some approaches that will be useful to designers.

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