Landscape Design Models – How To Use Them As You Design

Most people think of ‘landscape design models' as finished, presentation ready models.But they are good to make during your design process.

Creating simple ‘working models‘ allows you to explore ideas and different options in a more tangible, physical way.Sometimes seeing something in 3D makes it easier to make decisions about what does and doesn't work.

What Are Landscape Design Models?

church model example — Building models are something you often see.Made form card or thin timber – like balsa wood – they show a final version of a design.Photo by Stefan Cosmaon Unsplash

Most people are used to seeing presentation models – especially of buildings.Architects often use final models to present to clients, or as a prop for competitions.

Landscape Architects also use models.You can create a sense of topography using pieces of card, carved out and laid flat.This shows the slope or lay of the land, and you can add features on top of it.Again, these are often used as part of a final presentation for clients or competitions.

Rather that work through ‘presentation' landscape design models, I want to share how useful ‘working' models can be.They can help in many ways.'

Firstly,interacting with them is easier.We evolved to see the world around us in 3D.So why don't we try and design using a 3D medium?

Actually, many professional designs do incorporate 3D models while designing.However, they're just on a computer, using specialty programs.

Another reason working models are useful is that not everyone has access to, or the ability to use, those specialty 3D modelling programs.So often the best way to work in 3D is byusing your hands.Also working with your hands can be a nice change of pace from drawing.

In all likelihood, working models will bemore usefulto you than a presentation model.Creating a presentation model is a waste of time unless you have finalised your design and really want to show it off to people.

So What Are ‘Working' Models?

A close up view of the landscape I was shaping.

Working models are all about creatingquickanddirty‘shapes‘ that give you the basic outline of a space.They are best used to explore ideas inone position at a time, rather than your whole design.

You want to use simple materials, and preferably set up an‘outline'of a space that you can plug your different models into.You can see the image above – a photo of a working model I developed for my Masters research.

I was attempting to create a public space that would allow a user to be completely secluded from the surrounding city.This required a ‘drop' in ground level, so the person in the middle wouldn't see buildings around them.

I wanted to test a few different shapes of how this ground could be shaped, so I decided instead of modelling it in a computer, I'd create a collection of basic models from card.

How Do You Make Models?

The first thing you need is materials and a place to work.To make it easier for yourself, gather:

Card– nothing too thick – relatively easy to cut, but it needs to be strong enough to stand up on it's own if needed.Maybe get a few different thicknesses to test out to see what works best for you
Box cutter/ Stanley knife– a safe knife you can use to cut the card

Ruler– to measure and cut against
Cutting mat– anything thick enough to take the blade without passing it through the table surface – rubber mats work well, but if you don't have one, normal cardboard will do
Pencil– to mark out lines and measure specific, scaled dimensions
Glue– craft glue will work, or a specific card/paper glue for modelling – something that is quick to dry and easy to wipe away excess

There may be more materials you can use, but these should be enough to get you started.

Set Up

The easiest way to ensure you models are to scale is to print out a basic outline of the design you want to explore.Then you can cut out any relevant surrounding parts that your model can ‘sit' within.Think your house, other buildings, fences and trees.

They don't have to be exact replicas of these things.They just need to occupy the same amount of space the real items do, to give your model a sense of scale and perspective.You can see below basic rectangular shapes suggest buildings.It's a large scale so they aren't very tall, but the occupy the space surrounding my public area.

Hard to tell, but you can see a paper plan beneath the cardboard.The different pieces of cardboard are buildings, placed around the public square I am shaping.

Once you have your surroundings in place, you can look to create some quick models to test your ideas.The best way to do this is to measure out your shapes on card, and use the knife (cutting on the cutting mat) to cut them out.Then you can glue the pieces together and straighten it out.It's not complicated, and is generally pretty quick and easy.

My Examples

For the ‘models' I made, I cut out the basic outline, then ‘scored' lines in one side.This meant I could bend the card along that cut and shape it that way, and glue sections if needed.You can see this approach in the images below.

First idea was to slope the ground down towards a large rim wall.

This time, go along the edges of the space and cut lines down to a low point.

Similar to above, but with a few more lines cut in, to make the shape ‘fan' a bit more.

Taking the fan idea further, I made it circular again and scored both sides at set distances to create this undulating shape.

You can see above they weren't that hard to create – in fact my models didn't require much gluing at all.Mainly just measuring and scoring cuts.This site is quite large, so all I wanted to explore was the kind of shape the space could take, rather than individual elements within it.

What I liked the best was the final model – the fan shape.It proved interesting, and allowed me to tweak it even further (in a computer model) to target and hide specific buildings, preventing any part of the city from being visible from the central point.

The key point here though, isI would never have discovered the fan shape concept if I hadn't beendesigningthrough landscape design models.It's unlikely I would have ‘imagined' the space in such a way.By working through my hands, I came up with something different and interesting.

This can occasionally be a negative, in that you can only really discover ideas that are within the tolerances of your material.It's unlikely I would get a beautiful flowing shape or pattern using card.I might have needed cloth or different paper to imitate that approach.So keep that in mind when you explore ideas -your materials can shape your thinking.

Always Build To SCALE

And, as I've mentioned, it's vital you make themto scale.If your base plan is 1:100, try to create a model that uses 1:100 measurements.So a building that is 4 m tall will be 4 cm tall.If that's not big enough, make the model larger – 1:50.So now it will be 8 cm tall.

The only time to ignore this is if you are exploring ideas rapidly –reallyquickly going through different iterations.Otherwise, try to draw things to a scale that allows you to notice some details, but is not unwieldy or time consuming to make.

Another great tip when you create surrounding things to scale – make alittle scaled version of yourself.Something simple – it could even be a cardboard rectangle that matches your height.Maybe with your face on it…

A little scaled person allows you to move it around your landscape design model to see how it interacts with the space/s.You can even have fun with this and take photos fromwithinthe model, from your little persons point of view.

Creating a model without a person in it makes it much harder to judge how effective the space is.You want to seehow a person uses the spaceyou're designing.Having a tiny model of yourself allows you to see how components in the space impact you.What you might see in certain directions, how you move through things, slopes, heights etc.– everything that you could interact with in the space.

Another landscape design model I made for a different project.Note the little model people in it (yes I did buy little figures and scale my model to them).

Landscape Design Models: Plug & Play

I showed you above how you an explore multiple different options and ideas by having your models slot into a surrounding ‘outline'.This is something you can come back to time and again.

You may come up with new ideas as you explore further.If you want, you can make more working models and slot them straight into your existing surrounds.Not having to remake your model saves you a tonne of time.

And if your surrounding plans change slightly, that's fine.You can tweak what you can, or even make it again.It shouldn't be anything too detailed, so hopefully is something you can build (even faster) a second time.

And that is it to this little guide.I hope you can see how helpful creating your own landscape design models can beduringyour design process.