Specification Writing for Garden Design

Workshops on Garden Design Series

Author: John Heather

Synopsis:
Aimed at novice and professional garden designers, this specification `workshop' explains a method of producing instructions for garden design work which can be tailored to an individual designer's current project.

The model specification has been developed over many years and is thoroughly tried and tested. It has been kept deliberately brief and is flexible enough to allow designers to expand or condense it to suit their needs, and to allow use of their favourite products and plants.

Students and newly-qualified garden designers will find the model specification useful both as a contract document and as a technical check-list; it can be used on the smallest projects where the specification clauses are annotated directly on drawings or plans. In addition to the advice on the writing of specifications, examples of draft letters are included which may be used or adapted during the tendering phases of a project.

The format of the pages in this book has the model clauses on the right-hand side of the relevant page, with advice, reminders and other comments to the left. The clauses themselves are also reproduced on CD-ROM so that they may be downloaded by designers for their own adaptation and uses.

The overall format assumes a designer is acting as an independent consultant and not as an employee or partner of a contractor offering a package design and build service.

Contents: Purpose of a specification; Information for specification writing; Format for a specification; Written style; Using a model specification; Clause and page numbering; Example of a project specification; Updating and improving your office model specification; Plant and maintenance schedules; the Tendering procedures; Reference sources and further reading; the Model Specification clauses (59 pages); Appendices – Example schedules; Sample form of tender and letters; Schedule of clause names in this specification; Schedules of trade names and British or European Standards mentioned in the text.

The Author: John Heather trained as an architect at the Architectural Association, London. He has worked in both private and local authority architects’ offices for many years, and gained broad experience of construction theory and practice. He has co-operated with research projects at the former Government Building Research Establishment, Garston, and served on committees at the British Standards Institution drafting international technical standards. Since the 1990s he has become well respected among students and colleges for his lectures on subjects such as hard landscape and professional practice. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Inchbald School of Design, London, and the Oxford College of Garden Design.

Published 01/11/2003; updated with amendments – February 2005, October 2007.
ISBNs: (10) 1 85341 132 9; (13) 978 185341 132 8
Pages: 84; spiral-bound with CD-ROM of clauses only.
Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm, landscape format.
Price: £19.99; members of the Society of Garden Designers UK (SGD), the Garden & Landscape Designers Association of Ireland (GLDA) and bona fide students at design colleges, are charged the discounted price of £17.00, when the publication is ordered from the publisher, plus £2.00 postage and packing.

Distribution: this is a specialist’s book and is not stocked widely by booksellers, with the exception of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) bookshops at Wisley (also available by mail-order) and Harlow Carr, and the RIBA bookshop at Portland Place, London; also Landsmans Bookshop, Bromyard, Herefordshire (mail-order). Amazon and other booksellers do not stock this publication but will usually special-order it via wholesalers which, regrettably, can lead to several weeks of delay. The publisher arranges for copies to be available at most garden-design (but not general gardening) conferences. See the Activities page for details of how to order from the publisher.