Bubble Diagram & Site Circulation

Now it’s time to play with the arrangement and layout of your site! Bubble diagrams and circulation mapping are two instrumental tools for drafting potential layouts. Have plenty of extra tracing paper on hand so that you can easily sketch out many different scenarios. Don’t worry about making your drafts look pretty– loose sketches are good enough for the time being. 

Bubble diagrams help you work out the sizes of features and zones in your landscape, as well as their relationships to one another. 

Circulation mapping helps you figure out how you’ll move through the landscape. This process considers both practical usage (e.g. straight path to the compost heap) as well as general feel (e.g. subtle transitions between zones). Circulation mapping can be done on the same sheets as your bubble diagrams.

1. Bubble Diagrams

• On tracing paper that is taped over your basemap, sketch out shapes that represent each feature you want in your landscape.
  • Play with many different arrangements! Consider which features you want close together, which should be kept separate, and if there are any functional connections between features.
  • Periodically check in with your site analysis to ensure that you are placing features in site-appropriate locations, such as putting the vegetable garden in a sunny area or adding a privacy screen along your fence.

2. Circulation Mapping

• Adding to your bubble diagrams, map out how you’d move through the different versions of the landscape.
  • Consider primary pathways, minor pathways, views, and practical movement efficiency. Remember that when it comes to utility, we will always take the most direct path to our destination.

3. Evaluation

• Which diagrams feel the most intuitive? Move those to the top of your pile for review. Give them labels such as A, B, and C so it’s easy to talk about them. What do you like most about each of these options?
• Are there features that you feel you need to eliminate or add, according to the space available?