In this schematic drawing, Chris is working on finding ideas on how to best place buildings on a property. It is this is about 36 acres on two sites, but he is only taking into consideration 15 acres.

There's a natural drainage with a seasonal stream that goes through the right side of the property and he is exploring how to best utilize it by damming the drainage up. It could then be used as a water feature on the property.

The solution would then suggest where a guest house, a main house and a barn might go on the property.

The owners have horses and want to incorporate pasture or paddocks yet keep the horses off the yards and finished areas of the property.

So Chris drew out basic blocks on vellum to represent the buildings, so that he can effectively see through the paper and look at the contours below. He then moves the blocks around to put those buildings in relation to anticipated water features. He also keeps in mind view angles of distant mountains.

This stage in site planning is very organic: you need to think about features such as turnarounds and vehicular traffic on the property, where the cars come in, how are they circulating around, how they would get to the guest house, the barn, and the main house. And how horse trailers and other larger vehicles would move about. So you just don't lay things down assuming your idea will automatically work out. You place elements down, work on an overlay and use that as an example. Then you try something else as you don’t want to miss an option.

This is all well represented with Chris freely sketching out an option of how the concepts mentioned might work. In this drawing, the guesthouse has already been designed, but the barn and main house are yet to be determined.

Chris is drawing the ponds with some waterfall features and a little bridge to go across an outlet, He also adds fences and roads.

Once done with this drawing, it will just be a reference for further work once the other structures’ designs are defined. Using yellow tracing paper allows Chris to keep exploring options.