The Engineers Office

Fairsted's Engineers Office

The engineer’s office worked hand in hand with those in the photographic records room, for they used the images to base their plans off. With Olmsted having no formal training, the nuts and bolts of each design were taken care of here. Landscape architecture can be broken up into 2 sections: a hardscape and a softscape. Engineers and architects take care of the hardscape while the softscape is handled by the planting department, but make no mistake, one cannot survive without the other. If an engineer designs a park with poor drainage, then the plants there may not be able to survive. Engineers produce the canvas that the planting department paints on. The last addition made to the office; the technical work done here was crucial to the success of every Olmsted designed landscape. Those in this office would conduct surveys in outdoor landscapes, in addition to using this light table to produce tracings, which will become important when blueprints were needed.