Using and Choosing the Right Scale

Where this explanation is leading us is to concepts of drawing conventions (covered in Chapter 4) and scale (to be covered here). The design services of a landscape architect involve (1) developing design ideas, (2) refining these ideas according to input from the client and others, then (3) resolving the refined ideas into their final form of construction-ready plan drawings and details. The drawings are a representation of both what is on the ground (existing conditions) and what is projected to be built on the ground, usually by a third party such as a landscape and building contractor. In order for the contractor to build what the designer intends, the drawings must contain sufficient detail and an accurate representation of existing site conditions. The graphic information must be organized around a graphic system that the contractor and the land surveyor can transpose from hand-drawn or digital information to the ground. The use of scale, in a graphic representation sense, allows the designer to transfer ideas to paper, then allows the contractor to transfer them from paper to the ground.

Scale is the relationship between measured distances on the ground and the dimensions of a three-dimensional physical element that is drawn as a plan or as a series of details and sections. The drawings represent the physical reality of the project site and a scaled facsimile of the designed elements to be built. A plan scale represents a fraction or a ratio whereby a unit of measurement shown on a plan, such as an inch or fraction of an inch, is equal to a prescribed number of feet on the ground. For instance, a drawing prepared at 20 scale means that an inch on a ruler represents 20 feet on the ground. So if a playing field is designed to be 100 feet wide and 300 feet long, it would be drawn—on a piece of paper or using a computer—5 inches wide by 15 inches long. Simple enough, but the decision of which scale to use to prepare the needed plans and details has as much to do with the level of detail to be included as with the sheet size of the drawings, in the context of the actual size or area of the project site.

A golf course, which could be 150 to 200 acres, might require a drawing scale of 1 inch equals 100 feet (100 scale) in order to fit on a