A review of soil and soft-scape material management as a sustainable intervention for the execution of landscape in residential projects of Pune

Abstract

Landscape is an integral part of today’s urban residential projects. As far as Pune is concerned, it has seen a rapid rise in the number of residential projects over the last decade. In many of these residential projects, landscape development is done either by landscape architects or by architects. Overall, development takes place over two to three years and landscape development is done at the end of projects.

Further investigation by interviews and field observations carried out during this research process pointed out many issues in the planning and execution stage of the project. Issues observed in the execution stage were mostly related to natural materials like soil, plants and water. These are precious resources for landscape projects and their loss is not measurable in terms of money.  Also, they are difficult to replenish. Improper planning w.r.t. project timeline is also responsible for wastage of topsoil and plants. This identifies the need for management during the execution of landscape.

Thus this paper aims to review the need of Soil and soft scape material management-plan as a tool for sustainable, economic and season-wise scheduled landscape development in residential projects as per construction management principles.