Pattern in Design

1. Review the client checklist forms in Appendix four: Patterns. These forms can be used in conjunction with the forms provided in Appendix Three: Design. Fill in the Outcomes form for the site you previously chose for your project.

· Overall we are looking to design a self-sustaining site on a relatively new site that has had little previous work carried out on it.

· We are looking to make this a vegetarian project focusing on making the entire area an ‘edible’ landscape.

· The outdoors is very important to us, but we have no need for the traditional English lawn area. Getting outside, working outside, socialising outside is critical to the type of ‘lifestyle’ we are trying to create.

· The site’s size is limited so we must maximise the edges and margins.

· We want to experiment with forest garden ideas, as this is a highly productive and self-fertile system; we also grew up around the New Forest National Park.

· We want to use lessons from Earthship design and build, or at least borrow from the ethos of green building.

· Substantial grey water collection and reed filtration are also preferred. Composting toilets will also be our human waste disposal of choice.

· Due to the angled geography to the west aspect of the site, much of that side of the building could be part-buried improving insular properties. We’d like to include some geothermal capacity to the property to assist with warming.

· Recycled materials are to be used extensively.

· We want to have lots of experimental build ideas as the challenge is as important as the technologies available. Eco-build from start to finish.

2. Observe your chosen site. Note the functions taking place (how the elements interact with other elements in the system). Consider the functions and elements you want in your system and develop implementation strategies to create them. Fill in the Patterns form in Appendix four: Patterns. This may be difficult if you are not familiar with the site. Be sure to include any patterns of behaviour the client may have.

Patterns -Initial Comments
Frost covers most of the SW corner of the site. Because we are new to the site we have yet to observe how extensive this will be stretching over the rest of the site. - We’ve decided to mitigate this by positioning our property in this location.

Site has substantial angle and we must consider water retention policy we will employ. -Designing swales and a dew pond for over-spill collection from rainwater collection to be designed into the overall build to help minimise runoff problem.

Summer offers full sun to entire site. - We’re designing large amounts of fruit stock to offer dappled shade for both plants and house.

Occasional vacation but not often for long or the same time each year. - Ensure that planting scheme is self-fertile and low maintenance.

3. Consider the special influence of edge on the designs you produced for the last section. Discuss how you will manipulate edge to improve your site design. Remember to maximise edge to increase productivity options and minimise edge when conserving energy. (Anticipate that future assignments will further redevelop your chosen site.)

We have already identified that with the limited space available to us that we must adapt our design to make the most of all the tiny margins we find around it. The steps we are endeavouring to take in order to take advantage of these margins are:

· Plant hedgerows, which we hope to encourage predators and diverse wildlife along with ensuring our hedgerows can provide a yield for us too, brambles are all over the area providing food not just for us, but our animal friends too.

· Spiral planting, to offer more edges but also allowing for a closer cultivation pathway. This will give us close access to our planting schemes whilst not removing productive areas with unnecessary pathways.

· Forest gardening, as mentioned above is a passion for us and with the basic seven-layer approach we can utilise much more of not just the horizontal plane but also design vertical growth into our site.

· Trellising, the access road is quite wide and intrudes through the entire site, by constructing ‘trellis-like’ structure to the sides and over the top of this access road, we increase the areas with which to grow on, including climbing plants to our overall design scheme.

We have plenty of additional margin opportunities that we believe will become apparent the more observations we make, but for now these above are the clearest opportunities we see.