Industrial Landscape Architecture: 5 Dos and Don’ts for a Successful DA
Industrial landscape architecture is sometimes treated as an afterthought.
The building is designed, the warehouse footprint is locked in, the car parking is squeezed onto the site, truck movements are resolved—and then someone asks:
“Can we get the landscape architect to fit some planting around the edges?”
That approach can create unnecessary problems.
Industrial sites have to accommodate a surprisingly complicated combination of requirements: heavy vehicles, loading areas, parking, fire access, stormwater, security, building setbacks, screening, trees, biodiversity and Council landscaping controls.
Good industrial landscape architecture isn't about putting a row of trees along the front boundary.
It's about coordinating all of those competing requirements into a landscape response that is functional, robust and approvable.
Here are five things to do—and five things to avoid—when preparing landscape architecture for an industrial development.
1. DO: Understand the planning controls before designing the landscape
The first mistake on an industrial project is starting with planting.
Before deciding what goes where, understand what the planning controls actually require.
Depending on the council and the type of development, this can include requirements relating to:
Minimum landscaped area
Deep soil
Street setbacks
Boundary setbacks
Tree planting
Tree canopy
Screening
Fencing
Interface with adjoining residential properties
Stormwater
Biodiversity
Existing vegetation
Landscaping within car parks
Planting along public frontages
These requirements can have a significant effect on the site layout.
For example, a landscaped setback might look generous on the architectural site plan, but once vehicle access, pedestrian paths, fire services, retaining walls and sight lines are taken into account, the genuinely usable landscape area can become considerably smaller.
Understand the controls first. Then design the landscape.
DON'T: Assume the landscape area is whatever is left over
This is one of the most common problems with industrial sites.
The building gets maximised.
Then the loading dock is added.
Then the parking.
Then the driveway.
Then the turning path.
Then the stormwater infrastructure.
And finally, the landscape architect is given the remaining strips of land and asked to “make it work.”
Landscape shouldn't simply be the residual space between the operational components of the development.
Where possible, landscape requirements should be considered during site planning, rather than after the site has already been consumed by everything else.
2. DO: Design around how the site actually operates
An industrial landscape has to survive an industrial environment.
That sounds obvious, but it's surprisingly easy to forget when developing a beautiful landscape concept.
Industrial sites can experience:
Heavy vehicle movements
Delivery vehicles
Forklifts
Loading operations
Frequent vehicle crossings
High levels of pedestrian movement
Security requirements
Maintenance vehicles
Fire truck access
Large areas of hardstand
Planting needs to be located and specified around those realities.
A landscape plan that looks fantastic but interferes with truck movements isn't a successful landscape plan.
The best industrial landscape designs work with the operational requirements of the site.
Planting can be used to define pedestrian areas, soften large expanses of hardstand, screen unsightly infrastructure and improve the street frontage without compromising the site's primary function.
DON'T: Put trees where trucks need to go
This sounds obvious.
It isn't always obvious on a drawing.
A tree that appears comfortably outside a building or parking bay may still conflict with:
Swept paths
Vehicle overhangs
Loading operations
Sight lines
Fire access
Service vehicle movements
Pedestrian circulation
Landscape plans should therefore be coordinated with the architectural and civil drawings—not developed independently from them.
A tree is only in the right place if it can actually survive there.
3. DO: Use landscape to manage the industrial interface
Industrial buildings can be large.
Very large.
A warehouse or logistics facility can present hundreds of metres of building frontage, hardstand, fencing and vehicle access to the surrounding environment.
Landscape architecture can play an important role in managing that interface.
This might mean:
Street frontage
A well-designed landscape setback can soften the appearance of a large industrial building and create a more considered relationship with the public domain.
Residential boundaries
Where industrial development adjoins residential properties, landscape can contribute to visual screening and separation.
Car parks
Trees and planting can break up large areas of asphalt and provide shade while improving the visual quality of the site.
Building edges
Planting can help reduce the visual dominance of long building elevations without creating maintenance problems immediately adjacent to the building.
Security fencing
Landscape can be used to integrate fencing into the overall site rather than treating security infrastructure as a completely separate element.
The objective isn't to hide the industrial use.
It's to make the transition between the industrial site and its surroundings more considered.
DON'T: Create a token landscape strip
A narrow strip of lawn with a few randomly positioned trees isn't necessarily good industrial landscape architecture.
If the planting doesn't respond to the street, the building, the site's operation or its neighbours, it becomes decorative rather than strategic.
Industrial landscape architecture doesn't need to be elaborate.
It needs to be deliberate.
4. DO: Design for maintenance and long-term performance
An industrial landscape is usually exposed to a very different environment from a private residential garden.
Large areas of hard surface can create heat.
There can be dust, vehicle movements and wind.
Maintenance access may be limited.
Irrigation can be expensive.
Planting may be exposed to reflected heat from buildings and pavements.
These factors should influence species selection and landscape detailing.
The best industrial landscapes are often relatively simple.
They use robust plant species, straightforward maintenance regimes and planting arrangements that can mature successfully without becoming a problem for the operation of the site.
A landscape that looks impressive at practical completion but becomes difficult to maintain five years later isn't a successful outcome.
DON'T: Overcomplicate the planting
Industrial projects don't necessarily benefit from a huge plant palette.
Twenty different ornamental species might look impressive on a concept plan, but a simpler palette of robust, appropriate species can often perform better.
The landscape needs to consider:
Will it survive?
Can it be maintained?
Will it interfere with vehicles?
Will it become a security problem?
Will it continue to look good when the initial maintenance period is over?
Good industrial landscape architecture is often about knowing what not to specify.
5. DO: Treat the landscape plan as technical documentation
A landscape plan for an industrial DA isn't just a presentation drawing.
It is part of the development application.
That means it needs to communicate the proposal clearly enough for other people to understand and assess it.
Depending on the project, this can include:
Existing trees
Proposed trees
Existing levels
Proposed levels
Cut and fill
Retaining walls
Planting areas
Hard surfaces
Fencing
Pedestrian paths
Landscape setbacks
Deep soil
Stormwater relationships
Landscape calculations
Plant schedules
Details and sections where required
The larger and more complex the project becomes, the more important this coordination becomes.
Industrial projects often involve multiple consultants and large architectural and civil drawing sets.
The landscape documentation needs to fit into that broader technical environment.
DON'T: Leave the landscape documentation until the end
This is perhaps the most expensive mistake.
If landscape is brought into the project after the site layout is completely resolved, there may be very little flexibility remaining.
The landscape architect then has to work around:
Building footprints
Loading docks
Parking
Stormwater infrastructure
Fire access
Retaining
Services
Vehicle movements
Existing trees
Sometimes that is unavoidable.
But getting landscape involved earlier can identify conflicts before they become expensive design problems.
Landscape architecture is most valuable when it influences the site—not when it's simply documenting what everyone else has already decided.
The bigger picture: industrial landscape architecture is about coordination
The five principles above ultimately come down to one thing:
Coordination.
A successful industrial landscape needs to coordinate landscape requirements with the operational requirements of the development.
The best outcome isn't necessarily the project with the most planting.
It's the project where the building, hardstand, vehicles, pedestrians, drainage, trees, landscape and public interface all work together.
That requires landscape architecture to be considered as part of the broader site planning process.
What about large industrial developments?
The larger the development, the more important this coordination becomes.
A major industrial or logistics development can involve substantial earthworks, extensive civil infrastructure, large areas of hardstand, significant vehicle movements and complex planning approval pathways.
Landscape documentation for these projects therefore needs to be technically rigorous and carefully coordinated with the broader consultant team.
At Place Supply, this is the environment in which much of our technical experience has been developed.
Our landscape documentation experience extends from smaller residential projects through to large commercial and industrial developments and State Significant Development Applications (SSDAs).
That experience matters even when the project itself is much smaller.
Applying large-project thinking to smaller projects
A small industrial development doesn't need the same volume of documentation as a major logistics facility.
But it can still benefit from the same fundamental approach:
Understand the site.
Understand the planning controls.
Understand how the development operates.
Coordinate the levels.
Resolve the interfaces.
Document the landscape clearly.
The scale of the project changes.
The underlying principles don't.
This is one of the advantages of working with a landscape architecture practice that is comfortable operating across different project scales.
The technical standards, drawing systems and coordination experience developed on complex projects can be applied proportionately to smaller developments.
The result isn't necessarily more documentation.
It's better targeted documentation.
The five rules in summary
If you're preparing an industrial development application, remember:
DO
Understand the planning controls before designing the landscape.
DON'T
Treat landscape as the leftover space after everything else has been designed.
DO
Design around truck movements, loading, parking, fire access and site operations.
DON'T
Put planting where it will interfere with vehicles, sight lines or maintenance.
DO
Use landscape strategically to improve streetscapes, boundaries and industrial interfaces.
DON'T
Create token planting just to satisfy a landscape requirement.
DO
Choose robust planting and design for long-term maintenance.
DON'T
Overcomplicate the planting palette unnecessarily.
DO
Treat the landscape plan as technical DA documentation.
DON'T
Leave landscape coordination until the end of the project.
Need landscape architecture documentation for an industrial development?
Place Supply provides landscape architecture and documentation support to architects, developers and design studios across Australia.
Our experience spans residential, commercial and industrial projects through to complex major developments, including State Significant Development Applications.
We bring that same technically rigorous approach to projects of different scales—developing documentation that is coordinated, clear and appropriate to the requirements of the project.
Whether you need landscape input during early site planning or technical documentation for a DA, Place Supply can provide flexible landscape architecture support without the overhead of a traditional large practice.
Landscape architecture. Technical documentation. Practical expertise.
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