Dumb Question?

[Highbeam]

Engineers use surveyors to place buildings and set grades around the structures to meet your desire. Architects are something else. Landscape architects plant bushes.

They can make it work but to get the best location for things like roads and such you will need to figure out what you want. Do you want a straight driveway that has hills or do you want a curvy driveway with a consistent slope? Both can be done but you need to decide.

Do you want your house on teh top of a hill, a ridge, or do you want to be excavated into a hill so that you have a daylight basement? Choices.

I really like southern exposures. I really like a driveway that is not a striaght shot to the public street so that people can't look at your house from the street. I really like to have enough flat area aroudn the home and barn to maneuver vehicles. I really hate water problems so will always choose high ground. Consider your neighbors future land management decisions. Will they clear cut? do you wnat to be near the line? In the middle of your lot? Lot's of personal decisions.

 

[AlanB]

I am in the spend a lot of time there, camping, looking and drawing. My advice, especially as I am cheap, would be to ask friends that have built recently and anyone I could get to the site thier opinions on how it should be.

I would make up a big piece of graph paper (poster size or larger) (you can buy gridded poster board at Wal-Mart) and then start plotting things on it, make you a little cutout of the house etc. outbuildings etc. septic, well, big trees you want to keep etc.

Then just spend some time playing with it and just moving things around.

You need a set of "rules" written down that cannot be varied (or easily varied) such as maybe the county sets where your drive comes in, or the state has said your septic must go here and they are not to inclined to vary it. So that you can refer to them as you move stuff around on your map board.

Then I would have another sheet for thoughts or ideas of what are important but can be worked around, things like mentioned here, southern exposure, driveway directions, just those things that you want to make sure you keep in mind while laying things out.

When you get it all plotted on there, then snap a digital picture of it for future reference to put it all back in place after you play with it more.

After doing that playing, or for me usually at the same time, start staking, marking with paint, ribbon or garden hoses the lay of stuff on the ground and make sure that your model and picture in your mind correspond to what it looks like on the ground.

After you have a good picture in your mind, and have weighed several possiblities, then ask a professional to look at it and insure you have not missed some basics. If you have your graph paper and models etc already it will all go a lot smoother and quicker as you guys sit there and discuss the pro's and con's of various approaches.

Hope it all works out well for you.

 

[yankeerider]

Engineers use surveyors to place buildings and set grades around the structures to meet your desire. Architects are something else. Landscape architects plant bushes.
.

It's unfortunate that we live in a world where many unqualified people give themselves a title for which they are unqualified. I am certain there are many people who call themselves landscape architects that are not qualified to do anything more than plant a bush. Nevertheless, you do a disservice to true landscape architects when you say that all they do is plant a bush.

Look here-> American Society of Landscape Architects - Content Details for a description of what true landscape architecture entails.

You raise excellent points that the OP needs to consider- specifically, what he and his family want in their place. From my experience, that's one of the first things any good architect-whether building architect or landscape architect- will ask when working with a client.

 

[gauthier]

I would just use what little sense I got and figure out what it all would look like and be after its been built,house, drive,etc. and build it where I wanted[if possible].

Well would be the top priority,and drive way to let well driller get to the drilling spot,,,course you got to know where house and buildings will be before driveway and well

Around here you can put your septic tank anywheres you want,but you don't want it very far from house,and of course you don't want your well to close to septic tank and drain field.

You could talk to a well driller and septic tank installer to see what they say about it. But if you ain't got water you won't need a septic tank.