understand these conventions and expect them to be followed. Grading plans contain a minimum of three layers of information: belowground surface, or subgrade; ground surface, or at grade; and aboveground, such as walls and other structures. The designer of site-grading plans needs to provide information for each layer, using spot elevations and contour lines for at grade, and spot elevations for below- and above-grade elements. Details, elevations, and sections are used to provide additional information to clarify the design intent for a site-grading plan. The reader has a plethora of sources for researching the drawing conventions used in preparing landscape-grading plans, sections, and related graphic communication elements. It is not the intent here to discuss these conventions, although examples of grading conventions can be viewed in the professional examples in a later chapter.
The Concept of Documentation Conventions in Music and Design Figure 4.2 is one page from a musical score. Like a grading plan, it provides a set of instructions to guide the activities of the reader: in the case of a score, the reader would be a musician, and in the case of a site-grading plan, the reader would be a construction contractor. A good example of this idea of the universality of drawing and communication conventions can be found in music, starting out with the composer: the creator of musical compositions. (See musical score, Figure 4.2.) Composers,1 regardless of the genre of music involved (e.g., opera, jazz, rock and roll, or hip-hop), use a standard music notation system. The music composed by the composer or artist is called the score. The composer first creates music in his or her head by some creative process. What is heard in the mind of the creator is transformed into marks on paper, using standard symbols and notation. When read by a musician, singer, or conductor, the score can be “heard” before the first note is played or sung. The drawings we produce to convey a landscape
1 Music composers, principally from Western cultures and traditions.
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Landscape Site Grading Principles
