A Study on a Landform Design in Lanbscape Architecture

On the Standardization of width, Height and Grade of a Mound, and Distance from View Points to a Mound

Abstract

Prudent landscape design distinguishes landform. design in landscape architecture from landform planning in civil engineering. While the criteria of landform construction has been well known, there is. no standard for landform design, yet it is an important element of landscape. This study attempts tosearch them out. The process of the study is basically divided into three steps: (1) lStudies on “TSUKI-YAMA” in famous historic Japanese gardens.(“TSUKI-YAMA” is a mound in a Japanese garden. and also considered a standard unit of landform.); (2) Examination of the facts found throughout former research efforts, and; (3) Overall conclusion.
The criteria for the study consisted of three basic elements. They are as follows:
1) The relation between the dimension of a mound and the distance from the view points to it;
2) The form of a mound; and,
3) The optimum dimension of a space for such a mound.
The indicators corresponding to the elements are below:
1) ' The ratio “D/W”; “D”, the horizontal distance from a view point to the highest point of a mound divided by “W”, the width of a mound.(See Figure 1)
2) ' “θ” (d°); the grade of a mound, and “H/h×100” (%); the percentage of “H”, the height of a mound divided by “h”, the height of the fundamental triangle of the mound.
3) ' The limits of “D” (m).
The overall conclusion throughout this study is as follows; the standards for “D/W” are shown in Table 2 (D/W=3 is suggested for the optimum standard). The standards for “θ” are shown in Table 5 (θ=23° or 24° is suggested for the prudent standard). The optimum percentage of “H/h×100” should be above 85% or 90%.(See Figure 4) The optimum space for a mound is limited to between. 23m. and 165m. All of these criteria should be considered in this landform design.