Planning for effective walkway and landscape maintenance
is key to ensuring the long term integrity of built features,
and to preserving the original design intent of landscape
architectural works. The Walkway Maintenance Manual
gives landscape architects a strong voice in managing the
future integrity of their design. The effective design of
the Manual is appropriately catered to its targeted audience
and will assist in the achievement of long term success.
The Manual is a comprehensive guide to maintenance, based
upon techniques established and tested by landscape architects,
construction supervisors and maintenance personnel. Concise
step-by-step directions relate the information needed to safely
handle walk repairs or enhancements, a wide variety of horticultural
and landscape tasks, and maintenance of wooden, stone and
metal structures. The Manual also outlines a detailed inspection
process, and supplies forms, a maintenance calendar and other
aids which assist with cost estimating, implementing and tracking
of maintenance work.
Maintenance staff will find the back-up resources needed
to provide effective landscape maintenance, instruction which
has been tailored to the landscape, and design considerations
for the development of a walkway system. The 196-page book
is lavishly illustrated with more than 450 color images and
diagrams which relay detailed information on the rationale
and methods needed to undertake effective maintenance.
Printed on robust tyvek paper and bound within a sturdy D-ring
binder, the Manual is designed as a planning and field tool.
Removable pages and color-coded dividers permit rapid retrieval
and return to relevant information.
Landscape architects and students, municipal managers, park
planners, private firms and trail or environment based organizations
will benefit from the information contained in this publication.
The Manual also plays an important role in developing the
attitudes and skills needed to achieve professional standards
in public landscape maintenance.
Time plays a particularly powerful role in the success or
failure of landscape architectural works. The Walkway
Maintenance Manual provides a new tool for landscape
architects, planners, and designers to exercise enduring
influence
on the unfolding of projects expected to mature over decades.
The success of the Manual may open the way to a new professional
practice, where an “operator’s manual” becomes
an integral part of the product landscape architects provide
for built works. The Manual provides a new tool that will
help the profession realize the lasting results which should
follow from our forward thinking professional outlook.
The Manual encourages users to employ a systematic approach
to maintenance – one suited to the landscapes they
maintain. Landscape architects set out this innovative vision
for the
Manual as a standard for care and a guide to employee development.
Since its official release in August of 2004, the Manual
has received significant regional and national attention with
purchases from across the country. The local Federation of
Municipalities has also recognized the value of the publication
for local communities and is offering a 75% subsidy to their
300-plus members.
The Walkway Maintenance Manual is distributed by
the publisher through regional and national exhibits, Internet
promotions, national newsletters and magazines. Due to the
high cost associated with the publishing of this specially
designed publication, the first edition print run was 750
copies. Over 100 copies have been distributed to date. A steady
flow of inquiries indicate that this document is starting
to receive the national attention that it deserves.
Producing the Manual required researching and evaluating
a wide range of technical information, the documenting of
established
practices, measuring of worker productivity, and the collecting
of many images and sketches, all of which proved to be very
challenging. With the assistance of landscape architects,
writers, graphic artists, photographers, editors and field
crews, these materials were collected within one year. Landscape
architects shaped the Manual to allow diverse organizations
to apply consistent maintenance standards, and to preserve
the landscape architect’s original design intent as
it was manifest in diverse landscape settings.
|
