Designing a Large Site

These are two design alternatives for a massive property in Anmore, BC. To understand the scale of it, it's over twice the size of a typical Vancouver lots. At this stage, only the backyard was designed. The front yard, of roughly the same area, will be designed in phase two.

When working on a large property like this, designing it with the same intensity throughout the entire site is highly uncommon. For budget, practical, and environmental considerations most of the development typically happens in the vicinity of the house. The rest of the lot is either left untouched or gets a different design treatment.

Designs the propose high density of outdoor living functions, in the proximity between them is very small, is generally called an Intensive Design. Designs that propose low density of functions or none at all, would be refer to as Extensive Design. On a large site, there is typically a transition between these two types of designs as you can see in this project.

Here are some strategies for Extensive Design, where intervention is typically more minimal. Some of them were implemented in this project:

* Allow to naturalize

* Walkway(s) for strolling within the existing environment

* Area for utilities such as septic or waterstorm management systems

* Natural play area that uses existing elements such as tree logs and boulders

* Groundcover planting to cover large areas without having to battle weeds and still have an aesthetic value