A residential landscape design is a microcosm of the natural world, it is a place of vision and practice that represents the aspirations of the people and of the society they live in. The residential open spaces have always been a symbolic space, over the ages, where the people strive to keep nature close to their daily and social life.

Residential landscaping can be defined as the art and the practice of improving the functional, environmental and aesthetic appeal of the open spaces of a home in conjunction with its built space. A home is complete with the integration of its built spaces and open or semi open spaces.

One can imagine 2 major materialities, while planning the landscape design i.e. plant materials (“softscape”) consisting primarily of vegetation and ground and structural / civil materials (“hardscape”), such as paving, fences and walls etc. This exercise focused on the planning and design of the softscape, especially with vegetation.

Site analysis is a vital step in this process and one of the key elements of Deciphering a site is analysis of its terrain by way of understanding the topography, elevation mapping, slope analysis, hydrology etc. This exercise is also aimed at the application of the learning from the earlier topics of vegetation typology and site suitability analysis.