[Michael Lynskey]

That is a really great blog!  Thank’s for sharing and hope the rest of the trip goes well.  What a great idea…

P.S.  I love Pittsburgh.

[Michael Lynskey]

The Civil 3D feature lines work a lot like SketchUp lines, interacting with each other as you raise/lower them.  Just keep items you don’t want interacting in different “sites”, much like SketchUp groups and you’ll be fine.  Civil 3D has many useful tools for editing the feature lines, such as by slope, by reference surface (“draping” on existing surface, for example), etc.  Build your finished surface with feature lines, individual points, manually drawn contours, or whatever combination is needed.  

Adding interactive surface labels for spot elevations and/or slopes, that automatically adjust as the terrain is edited, are mighty handy and a good check for problem areas.  The help files should have all the information you need, if you have the time to go through them.  Good luck!

[Michael Lynskey]

Do you have access to Civil 3D?  You have the most control that way & then could export either a TIN or breaklines (feature lines in Civil 3D) into your rendering program of choice.  Might be overkill if you don’t need survey-level accuracy, though.

[Michael Lynskey]

At NC State, the Department of Architecture and Landscape Design was established in 1946, with the departments reorganized into the present-day College of Design in 1948 (under Henry Kamphoefner), according to here: http://historicalstate.lib.ncsu.edu/timelines/highlights-in-nc-state-history

 

It is mostly a graduate program, at this point, and has seen quite a resurgence in the past few years with many student awards and competition wins under our belt (I’m a recent graduate so a bit biased).

[Michael Lynskey]

You could probably get an Ecological Engineering degree in about the same time it takes to earn an MLA.  That might be a little more valuable in the current job market.  Just an idea…

[Michael Lynskey]

I’m a little surprised on how little consensus there is on something this fundamental to our practice, although this is an admittedly small sampling of opinions. I guess it’s just another aspect of our profession, being sort of an intermediary between the other more specialized fields, that we need to be fluent in either system of measurement/labeling and know when to use each accordingly.

I’m a civil technician turned MLA student and can definitely say that engineers & surveyors would scoff at a grading plan done in architectural units. Layout is more tricky and I agree with Nick that structural elements might need to be architectual, while larger-scale site work would more natually be in decimal feet. Highly structural urban plazas, etc., would be in architectual, I would think. I guess there’s no clear answer…interesting.

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