After years of shepherding our clients through budget surprises and disappointments they could have avoided had we been on their design team from the start, we recommend getting a landscape architect on the team at this point:
Early. At the start. Before you site your home. When you hire your architect.
In other words, before you think you need one.
Why? Isn’t that just more expensive for me?
The cost of having another consultant on your design team from the start is an added line item on your budget. But waiting until after your home’s design is complete can mean you have less control over two things: your design choices and your money.
This is why the timing matters:
Better Control Over Your Choices
Early design (often called schematic design) is when you and your design team define your priorities. You also make some big-picture decisions about where your house will be positioned on your land, how large it will be, and perhaps its elevation. Whether or not you’re thinking about landscape at this point, these decisions are going to affect every aspect of your lifestyle outdoors.
At this stage, your landscape goals may not be much clearer than “I know we want a pool and a spa.” If your landscape architect is on your team early, they can show you how the decisions you make about your home’s footprint, orientation, and elevation will either enhance or erode your vision of splashing in the pool at sunset. For example, a larger footprint may mean you can’t fit a full-size pool and you lose out on a sunny deck. Another orientation may mean you can add a cabana and capture your favorite view from the spa.
Or imagine you yearn for a shaded expanse where you can host large parties or alfresco dining under a canopy of leafy trees. Building your home from property line to property line may make installation of large trees, maintenance, or a marquee tent very challenging—and potentially more expensive when there is no way for large equipment to get back there. It may make you reconsider the footprint of your home.
In other words, understanding how decisions about your home affect your landscape gives you the whole picture. And with the whole picture you avoid compromising what you really hoped for without realizing it.
Better Control Over Your Budget
Like the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and structural engineering systems in architecture, every landscape is supported by hidden infrastructure. It’s invisible, yet necessary. We’ve discovered that when a landscape architect isn’t involved early enough on the team, budget estimates for this infrastructure are consistently too low. When this happens, our clients have to cut amenities they yearned for in order to pay for costs they were unprepared for.
Take soil. This is one of the budget items most frequently miscalculated without a landscape architect. Costs associated with your soil’s health for planting, how much of it you’ll actually need based on your design, and its condition after construction—all of this is frequently met with the question “How come I didn’t know this before?” Knowing up front a landscape architect’s estimate for removing and replacing soil compacted during construction may make you decide to spend differently on other choices. This way, you preserve a healthy budget for a pool, pergola, or outdoor kitchen.
Or grading. Raising the floor elevation of your home may work out perfectly well when you’re inside. But we’re trained to show you how your high foundation will appear from the outside and how it will affect how you enter and exit your home. Did you want your budget to go into significant foundation plantings? Will the cost of the high stair needed to connect home to land change the way you spend on other areas? Discovering these implications after your home is built usually means sacrificing something you wanted to fund.
Designing your “forever” home is an endeavor of passion. Dreams, energy, money, aspirations, decisions, time—you invest all of these into creating a carefully crafted vision of a beautiful life with those you love.
At Barker Evans, we guide people through decisions that will affect their day-to-day living for many years. We are trained to think about your design from a perspective that’s different from your architect, interior designer, or contractor. We think differently, so we ask different questions.
Why invest in that perspective at the start of your project?
It’s simply wise spending.