In high, mountainous and forested regions the various structural elements of rustic construction – logs, timbers, rocks – must be reasonably overscaled to the structure itself to avoid being unreasonably underscaled to surrounding large trees and rough terrain. In less rugged natural areas, the style may be employed with less emphasis on oversizing. For pleasing harmony, the scale of the structural elements must be reduced proportionately as the ruggedness and scale of the surroundings diminish. Then this recession in scale reaches a point at which there is any hint of “twig” architecture masquerading under the term “rustic,” the understanding designer will sense immediately its limitations and take refuge in some widely different style.
That the so-called “rustic” style offers, if anything, more pitfalls to failure than do the more sophisticated expressions, is not widely enough understood. And while generally speaking it lends itself to man, semi-wilderness regions perhaps better than the others, its use is by no means appropriate to all park areas. This is instantly demonstrated by recalling the wide range of dominant characteristics of our parks. Spectacular snow-covered mountain peaks, dramatic primeval forests, open expanses of arid desert or limitless prairie, shifting sand dunes gently rolling woodland and meadow, semi-tropical hammock, are not to be served appropriately by a single structural expression. A range of architectural styles as varied as these backgrounds must be employed before our park architecture will have come of age.
Nothing is more indicative of lack of a proper sense of values in park technique than the frequently expressed determination to “make a feature” of a shelter or other park structure. The features to be emphasized and stressed for appreciation in parks with which we are here concerned are the natural features, not the man-made. After all, every structural undertaking in a natural park is only a part of a whole. The individual building or facility must bow deferentially before the broad park plan, which is the major objective, never to be lost sight of. The park plan determines the size, character, location and use of each and every structure. Collectively, these should be properly interrelated; at the same time they must be closely and logically related to the park plan to insure its workability and harmony. Otherwise, there will result, as someone has expressed it, a costly but in effectual collection of “spare parts.”
Although a park structure exists solely for the use of the public, it is not required that it be seen from some distance. In its most satisfying expression, the park structure is designed with a view to subordinating it to its environment, and it is located so that it may profit from any natural screening that may exist. Suitable signs marking the way to a particular park building which has been appropriately retired are to be preferred to the shock of finding a building intruding at a focal point or visible for great distance.
The subordination of a structure to environment may be aided in several ways. One of these is to screen the building by locating it behind existing plant material or in some secluded spot in the terrain partly screened by some other natural feature. In the absence of such screening at a site otherwise well suited for the building’s function, an adequate screen can be planted, by repeating the same plant material which exists nearby. Preferably, structures will be so located with reference to the natural features of the landscape that it is unnecessary to plant them out.
The color of the exteriors, particularly the wooden portions of park structures, is another most important factor in assimilation. Naturally such colors as occur in, and are commonest to, the immediate surroundings serve best. In general, warm browns will go far toward retiring a wooden building in a wooded or partly wooded setting. A light driftwood gray is another safe color. Where contrast is desired to give architectural accent to minor items, such as window muntins, a light buff or stone color may be sparingly used. Strangely enough, green is perhaps the hardest of all colors to handle, because it is so difficult to get just the correct shade in a given setting and because it almost invariably fades to a strangely different hue. A green roof might be expected to blend with the green of the surrounding trees, yet because a mass of foliage is an uneven surface, intermingling other colors, and broken up by patches of deep shadow and bright openings, and because a roof is a flat plane which reflects a solid continuous color, anything but harmony results. Brown or weathered gray roofs, on the other hand, blend with the colors of earth and tree trunks to much happier results.
