There is something that sets landscape architecture apart from every other design discipline: what we deliver is never truly finished. Where built space tends toward permanence, a fixed form that holds its presence over time, landscape is, by nature, alive. It shifts with the season, grows with its species, loses its leaves and recovers them. The project we draw and the project that eventually inhabits a place are separated by years of slow, quiet transformation. This is not a limitation of our discipline. It is what makes it extraordinary, provided we apply the right criteria to the selection of every living element within it.

A good example of this approach is the redesign of a school entrance in Corveissiat, France, where landscape designer Stephanie Thomas set out to transform a hard, concrete-dominated space into one with a richer presence of vegetation, shade, and areas for rest and play.

The context as a starting point

The project began with the site itself. Within RhinoLands, the terrain data import function allowed the topography, existing buildings, and roads to be incorporated directly into the model, making the site’s real conditions the foundation of the design. Everything happens within the same working environment, without needing to switch tools or formats. Having that geolocation as a live base changes the nature of early design decisions. The 3D volumetry of trees and shrubs is read alongside real solar position and site coordinates, making it possible to anticipate how light and shadow will behave over the year before a single species is confirmed. For the designer, this directly informed the positioning of larger trees, ensuring that rest areas and play spaces would receive shade precisely when and where it was needed.

Planting with criteria

The species selection for the Corveissiat project reflects what the program offers by filtering species based on design criteria and other factors such as climate, soil type, and water requirements. Canopy cover over the main areas of use was addressed with Tilia cordata and Ginkgo biloba ‘Autumn Gold’. At ground level, species such as Vaccinium angustifolium and Geranium pratense offer a response well-suited to the conditions of eastern France with minimal maintenance. And in a detail that feels entirely right for a school setting, Rubus idaeus and Malus domestica introduce an edible, pedagogical dimension.

These are precisely the kinds of criteria that the RhinoLands plant database makes accessible. Species can be filtered not only by climate or soil type but also by characteristics such as edible fruit, allowing ecological and educational intentions to find their way into the planting plan as naturally as any other design decision.

Designing for all seasons

The technical planting plan remains exactly what it needs to be: precise, documented, ready for construction. What the software adds is the ability to move fluidly between that 2D document and a fully realised 3D model, keeping both in step as the design evolves.

Within that model, each species behaves as what it actually is: a living element with a seasonal cycle, a growth trajectory, and a specific presence in space at different times of year. The seasonal simulation in RhinoLands renders each plant according to its actual botanical behaviour, leaf density, crown volume, and colour shift, so that the same section becomes four distinct spatial experiences, each one specific to a time of year.

The argument for shade, for biodiversity, for a more generous public space, is no longer a promise dressed in ideal conditions. It is something you can see, compare, and present with confidence. RhinoLands provided powerful tools for the designer to make informed decisions about plant selection, placement, and the modification of design elements throughout all stages of the design process.