Creating a Support Tool for Designing Gardens with Japanese Maple Trees

Learning from the 1353 Maple Trees in 52 Gardens in Kyoto

Abstract

The aesthetic value of maple trees in gardens in Kyoto was considered to be firmly established among people. Therefore, as a tool for the planting of maple trees in private gardens, we created the set of cards by extracting plans showing the layout of the maple trees from actual examples in Kyoto. 1353 samples of 2m square planar configurations centered on maple tree trunks were obtained from the measured drawings of 52 gardens in the literature. They included any of the following 12 types of elements other than maple trees: tall trees, shrubs, buildings, lanterns, rocks, stepping stones, bridges, white sand, moss, grass, water, and garden paths. Cards were generated for 490 patterns of planar configurations classified according to the type, number, and arrangement of elements.