[.ca] Site Engineering for Landscape Architects (ISBN 0471273945)

A great site engineering reference book for architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers:
Site Engineering is a difficult subject for many landscape students and designers, yet it is a very important aspect of landscape architecture. As a landscape architect, you probably do not have to produce a grading plan (it can be done by a civil engineer), but you do need to have some basic site engineering knowledge to be able to coordinate your work with civil and other consultants. You do need to be able to read and visualize an ALTA survey map, or a grading plan; you do need to be able to understand what a concave or convex landform is, what a swale or ridge is, how to read contour or spot elevations, etc. "Site Engineering for Landscape Architects" will give you a very comprehensive knowledge of site engineering. It covers contours and form (constructing a section, contour signature and landform, characteristic of contour lines), interpolation and slope, grading constraints, grading design and process, earthwork, grading landform and architecture, storm water management, the methods to determine the rates and volumes of storm water runoff, natural resources conservation services, required detention storage, designing and sizing storm water management system, horizontal road alignment, vertical road alignment, and various case studies. It is so comprehensive that you can probably do a civil engineer's work after your read it. My suggestion is to buy this book, and look through it to have a general idea of what it covers and know where to find the information when you need it later. You can also look through the portions that you already know and focus on reading the portions that you are not very familiar with and improve your site engineering knowledge. "Site Engineering for Landscape Architects" has 352 pages and many line drawings and interior black-and-white photos. It is a great site engineering reference book for architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers. Copyright 2007 Gang Chen, author of "Planting Design Illustrated"

vertical curves:
I am taking a class in site engineering. This book has helped me tremendously in a difficult study such as this. I would recommend this book highly. It is easy to read and understand, and the author has an extensive understanding of the subject matter. a must for all students of landscape architecture!

Thorough but Poorly Organized:
Puchased this text to help review for the LARE exam. The text has all of the necessary information but is not layed out well. Illustrations are not located on pages where they are referenced in the text making it so that you have to flip back and forth across several pages to understand the text in relation to the examples. The larger problem with the book is that the answers to Exercises are not given. You will have no way to determine if you are completing the problems correctly or not. The only way to find out will be to have them reviewed by another Landscape Architect or Engineer. The text functions well as a reference for Landscape Architects to review formulas or storm water calculation techniques but if you are trying to use it for developing skills or for exam preperation I would not recommend it.

Great reference book!:
This is a great book to have on your shelf. Kept referring to it for my Site Technology classes and I know I'll be referring to it in the future. I found it very helpful and clearly written. Would highly recommend it.

Great Site Design Reference:
I was a bit tentative when I started to use this text. The book has some minor editing problems, but if your desire is to really understand site design with an emphasis on drainage and grading plan design this text does the trick and does it well. I would recommend this book to any Jr. land development designer/engineer as a must have reference.