Description: This metadata record describes details of National Park Service (NPS) buildings spatial data contributed to the NPS buildings aggregated dataset by the park unit specified in the NPS Unit element of this metadata record. The data files referred to in this record are the NPS Buildings aggregated point and polygons shapefiles, not the individual park unit shapefiles. The NPS Buildings aggregated point and polygons shapefiles are in the NPS Buildings Data Transfer Standard. This data transfer standard describes a model for buildings depicted using points and polygons. This data set includes both buildings that currently exist as well as sites of those that have been relocated or destroyed. Only features of a non-sensitive nature and freely available to the public are included (although the model has been designed to accommodate sensitive data in the future, if needed). Multiple point and polygon geometries may coexist and are differentiated by point and polygon type. All buildings of interest to the National Park Service are included, including those not owned by the NPS but located within authorized park boundaries and facilities that are leased by the NPS and cooperators which are located outside park boundaries. Only structures with a roof, commonly enclosed by walls, and designed for storage, human occupancy or shelters for animals are included. Other structures not designed for occupancy such as fences or bridges are excluded. Buildings include offices, warehouses, post offices, hospitals, prisons, schools, housing and storage units. Attribute data are intentionally limited to those necessary for spatial data maintenance and stewardship. Data from external database systems are not included. The means to maintain unique identifiers for each building (BuildingID) is through use of Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) assigned by the database. Information about the source and vintage of individual points and polygons are documented within the Edit_Date and Polygon_Notes attributes. An accurate representation of all current and former buildings that are of interest to the NPS is required by many programmatic functions, including but not limited to Facilities, Structural Fire, Homeland Security and Cultural/Natural Resource Management. Building information is also needed by NPS personnel, cooperators, and the public for map display and analysis. This data set is intended to be a comprehensive inventory of all buildings of interest to the NPS. This data set provides feature geometry and is intended to be supplemented with attributes maintained by other external database systems. This is the NPS GIS buildings data transfer standard that has been modified for public use. This standard is sponsored by the NPS GIS Committee in cooperation with the Resource Information Management Division. The principal data steward shall be the RIMD through the coordinated contributions and stewardship of many parks and programs. The National Park Service (NPS) manages nearly 400 sites, including national parks, monuments, seashores and recreation areas. Other sites are located outside park boundaries and support administrative, research, inventory and monitoring functions of the Service. Together these sites include a wide variety of contemporary and historic buildings, as well as locations of former buildings, owned, managed, or used by the NPS. Many programmatic functions of the Service require geographic and attribute information about these features, including Facilities Management, Structural Fire, Protection, Homeland Security, and Cultural/Natural Resource Management. Geospatial data for these features have traditionally been collected by individual parks without formal standards and in a variety of formats. Several NPS programs have inventoried and assigned unique identifiers for building structures, but only for those features meeting program-specific purposes. No single inventory includes all the buildings of interest to parks and the Service. In order to create an enterprise data set for the NPS, the NPS GIS Program is adopting a series of data standards that meet the needs of national programs, park-based analysis, and efficient data exchange with national initiatives such as The National Map. The most effective and recommended strategy to accomplish this goal is to develop a normalized database with related data in external tables. The NPS Building Geodatabase Implementation Plan provides the preferred NPS solution and should be utilized whenever possible. This NPS Building Polygon Transfer Standard should only be used if the geodatabase solution is impractical for a specific application or to transfer buildings data in the most generic format possible. The attributes in this standard are stored with the feature geometry. This buildings data layer accommodates multiple building feature types within the same data set. For example, building polygons have building perimeters, envelope polygons, building buffers and obscured polygons. All of which can exist for the same building. In order to maintain alternative geometry for a single feature, a unique identifier for both the building and geometry is needed. A Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) is used to populate the unique building (BLDG_ID) and building geometry (Geometry_ID) fields. These values should be automatically assigned as data are entered into the layer. NPS requirements are diverse and a wide variety of methods will be employed to enter building geometries, including GPS and digitized orthophotos. The positional precision of the spatial data may exceed its accuracy. (Precision refers to the ability to distinguish between small quantities or distances in measurement, while accuracy refers to freedom from error--in this case, how closely a feature is represented with respect to its true location. For example, a building footprint may require multiple points located 5 or 10 feet apart in order to adequately capture structure shape, even though the horizontal positional accuracy of these points may be 20 feet from their true locations.).
IF, IN THE ARRANGING of material of this collection, a certain latitude, not to say license, could not be assumed to be charitably granted the compilers by the readers, this heading would have little reason for being. For while, if asked to name a half dozen structures justified by need within parks, a reader will probably name an administration building as one of them, he might be somewhat in a fog if asked to describe just what, specifically, constitutes one. The embarrassing question will not be pressed upon the reader. Rather will the difficult duty of seeking the answer be here assumed and herein attempted, without, however, any certain expectancy of pulling a rabbit from an empty hat.
In theory the administration building is headquarters for directing effort and business management of the park area. Actually it may be a vest pocket, a desk, a room, perhaps supplemented with typewriter, adding machine, safe, possibly even two or more rooms with multiplication of these accessories. But few, if any, examples of administration buildings are known to exist as entities, separate from other functions. There are gate lodges, custodian's dwellings, community buildings, recreation pavilions, dining concessions, and numerous combinations of functions, all termed administration buildings. An appraisal of the use and of the space devoted to this intangible business of administration will usually demonstrate that the designation of the building is something of a courtesy title, if not actually a misnomer.
This widespread paradox exists very naturally and very logically. It is probably right that the point of control, the symbol of supervisory authority, should have importance, even dominance, among park buildings. It is quite pardonable that the limited space demand of administrative function should augment itself by the borrowed bulk of less significant space requirements and give name to the resulting combination structure. The tail is allowed to wag the dog with more than usual justification.
Structures dignified by the designation "administration building" often tend to prominence of location and austerity of treatment that arrogantly imply special prerogative to compete with Nature as the "feature" of the natural park. Such boorish behavior can no more be condoned in Park Building No. 1 than in lesser park structures.
Illustrated hereinafter are numerous buildings, one function of which is administration. Some include closely related functions, others combine facilities ill-related to the business of administration. In so far as these avoid the blight of several scattered structures to result in a single structure free of pompous pretensions, the multi-purpose building masquerading as administration building is not unreasonable. Rather does it seem to be a solution worthy of encouragement.
ALTHOUGH perhaps most of the many recreational facilities found in natural parks are with varying frequency let out as concessions, it is elected within this classification to treat only of the concession which dispenses by sale rather than by rental, and purveys to the recreationist food supplies, soft drinks, candies, tobacco, toys, prepared light lunches and meals. After all, it is this usage that comes first to mind at mention of the word, and the curb on verbosity that this limitation insures, while it comes hard for the pen in hand, will be a source of keen satisfaction to readers. A less restrictive interpretation of the word would lead to deadly duplication of the elsewhere dissected bathhouse, boathouse, and other structural media in promotion of active recreation.
Thus the concession building, as here discussed, is actually the corner store, delicatessen, restaurant, or even the hotel (in cases where overnight accommodation is offered), transplanted into the park area for the convenience of the park visitors. It may be some unpedigreed cross combination of two or more of these urban facilities, as it settles itself in adjustment to the demands of the recreation crowd and to its new environment.
If not extensive in size, the concession is very apt to seek association under the same roof with other nonconcession facilities or services, in order that it may be where the crowd is. This is essential to its commercial success, which is quite as necessary in a park environment as in the village. Other park facilities may exist by virtue of subsidy, but the concession is called upon to pay its way.
Since it must be located at the "cross roads" of the park, and must proclaim itself to the public, it cannot be exactly the shy violet among park buildings. It must announce its commercial traffic unmistakably but with subtlety. It is the Jekyll and Hyde among park structures. It is asked to walk in the paths of quiet beauty and of commercial solvency at one and the same time, though these may lead in opposite directions. It is scarcely a wonder that the concession building, successful both as a park structure and as a commercial venture, is not common.
Perhaps the greatest fault to be found with concession buildings on the whole is their lag in attaining the standards urged for park structures generally. There is recent evidence to indicate that this shortcoming is in process of correction. It is hoped that past tendencies to flimsiness, the temporary and ultra-commercial in appearance, are being overcome.
There is a practical need in connection with concession buildings, large and small, that is almost invariably underestimated. This is the space requirement for supplies. The sale of food, soft drinks, and other articles dispensed by the park concession involve not only much garbage and rubbish, but the handling and temporary storage of containers for soft drink and milk bottles, and the like, awaiting collection. These bulk to a space need that is hardly ever correctly foreseen, and eventually force the building of an addition or enclosure to screen the unsightly debris from public view. Because funds for second thoughts are grudgingly given, and because the initial shortage of space leads to a desire for an overabundance, the addition is apt to be of inferior construction and down-at-heel appearance. Practicability is served but quality is depreciated in the process.
Where the nearest overnight accommodations are very distant from the park, it sometimes becomes expedient to provide them within the confines of the park itself. This is often handled as a concession, and is termed a lodge, inn, or guest house. It is not a facility to be promoted in a natural park. Rather is it to be undertaken only when any increasing demand for it cannot longer be resisted. It is a "civilizing" influence that tends to distort the true concept of the natural park and to frustrate the public's basic and prior interest in natural parks safeguarded against the artificial.
AMONG BUILDINGS THAT HAVE COME to be regarded as on occasion justified within our present conception of a natural park, the cabin alone has the favorable advantage of long familiarity to us in woodland and meadow. So accustomed have we become to the survivals of frontier cabins that dot the countryside that we have grown to look upon them as almost indigenous to a natural setting. Of all park structures, those cabins which echo the pioneer theme in their outward appearance, whether constructed of logs, shakes or native stone, tend to jar us least with any feeling that they are unwelcome. The fact that park cabins are usually erected in colonies or groups—which frontier cabins as a rule were not—destroys the feeling of almost complete fitness that is produced by a single primitive cabin. The further fact that the true cost of such structures is usually much higher than their purpose or the prospective income from them would justify imposes upon the designer the necessity of availing himself of cheaper and more easily handled materials, and of using them the best way he can. Hence these groups are something of a dissonance in parks, acceptable only when their obtrusiveness is minimized insofar as possible.
When occupied, the cabin becomes in effect private property, serving an infinitesimal portion of the park-using public. In consequence, if the cabin on public lands is to justify itself it is essential that it at least pay its way during its lifetime, and that charges for its use should bear a logical relationship to its true cost. Any evaluation of that cost which fails to assign a reasonable value to materials acquired on the site or to all labor, however compensated, would be faulty.
A tendency frequently observed in connection with cabin groups is to spread the effects of their presence over a needlessly large area, on the assumption that the occupants of each are entitled to complete seclusion. In groups composed of the simplest cabin types this either compels a multiplication of toilet installations or renders the use of central facilities so difficult that the cabin occupant, particularly after dark, will frequently not go to the required trouble, with consequent development of unpleasant and unsanitary conditions. It also compels establishment of additional water outlets—one more item of cost.
Even in the case of cabin groups equipped with toilets and with running water, wide separation means added road construction to make them accessible and greatly increased costs of water distribution and sewage disposal. After all it seems fair to assume that where cabins are erected in parks, their purpose is to facilitate enjoyment of the park itself and that complete seclusion during the hours when they are occupied is not the supremely important goal it is so frequently assumed to be.
Often overlooked, but certainly the primary objective in providing cabins in public parks, should be adjustment of cost and facilities to the income range of the using public. There ought to be just as sincere effort to make habitable vacation shelter available to the patron of very limited means as there now exists an enthusiasm to supply the more ample facilities which the higher income brackets can afford and demand. Reasonable assumption of a range of rentals suggests the logic of three basic types of vacation cabins. A large proportion may well provide accommodations for five persons as the average American family group.
The simplest type of cabin, the "Student" or "Tourist" class (to initiate the figure of the passenger liner), must seek to bring the required minimum of space need in shelter within a most rigid limitation of cost, which must bear an arithmetical relation to the very limited rent the humble park user can afford to pay. This problem will tax the ingenuity of the ablest designer capable and desirous of producing a nice relationship between traditional charm and reasoned practicability. Of necessity such a cabin must be a very simple affair, affording merely the most compact of sleeping accommodations and small living space. In many localities an open or screened porch will be desirable or necessary. But required economy will compel the omission of toilet and bathing facilities, and even fireplace and kitchen that is more than mere cabinet, alcove or closet, from this simplest type of cabin. Group toilet and bathing facilities, and provision of very limited and compact kitchen equipment will naturally reduce the cabin unit cost, as compared with that of cabin groups in which toilet, bathing and more complete cooking facilities are integral parts of each cabin. A possible alternative for the very modest kitchen allowable within the simplest cabin is an outdoor camp stove, preferably with sheltering roof. If strategically located the camp stove may be a multiple unit and the kitchen shelter thus made to serve several cabins. Such is the prospectus for recreational or vacational cabin housing within the normal budget range of the great majority, and possible then, it should be borne in mind, for brief periods only and by dint of the most careful economy on the part of the family unit.
A narrowing field of potential users results when more ample space and added facilities, naturally accompanied by mounting costs and proportionately higher rental charges, are offered in "Second Cabin Class." Cabins of this type contain two rooms and a kitchenette. Both rooms should provide for sleeping. The kitchenette will tend to be something more than the simpler cabin type provides. A fireplace is an allowable feature, since the larger cabin will probably have a longer season of use. In the absence of a central recreation building as a gathering place, the cabin unit is forced to a greater self-sufficiency. Toilet and bath facilities within this class of cabin, while certainly to be desired, are hardly to be encouraged, in the face of the cost of these accessories.
The distinguishing features of cabins of the next group, the "First Cabin Class," are toilet and bath facilities, along with perhaps added spaciousness and greater privacy in sleeping quarters. Arbitrary pronouncement of limitations in space and facilities for these cabins is considered beyond the province of this general discussion.
When examples of the "First Cabin Class" give hint of elaboration to the point of becoming "Cabins de Luxe" or "Royal Suites" their appropriateness within natural parks will be challenged by many and defended by a few. Certainly such cabins are only justifiable if the vacancy ratio is negligible.
At the lack of spread in cabin facilities and rentals observable in many parks, just criticism can be leveled. It would seem not only to be better park planning, but better business planning, to have accommodations to offer over a wide price range and bearing some logical ratio to the wide income range that prevails among park patrons. It might be pointed out as an abuse of democratic principles if the benefits of park areas are withdrawn from availability to the many to the selfish enjoyment of the few. An abundant provision of cabins such as only the few can afford, and a blind, or calloused, disregard of the budget limits of the vast majority, are not social arithmetic.
It is not argued that the several "classes" of cabins must rub elbows in the park area as a condition of serving with equality the patrons of different social or financial strata. On the contrary, this is something to be rigidly avoided in layout. There is less emphasis on social differences and therefore less dissatisfaction for all concerned in a discreet grouping of cabins of each type somewhat to themselves.
While many cabins have been built as a single room large enough to provide sleeping accommodations for an average family, it is desirable even in such simple cabins to afford dressing space privacy by means of partitions, or curtains on poles, around one or more of the bed locations. Furthermore, the potential tenants are not always a family group, and failure to provide some measure of privacy results in a narrowing down of the tenant field.
Among space-saving possibilities to be carefully weighed by cabin designers with praiseworthy urge to provide the utmost for the cabin dollar, a wide opening between the enclosed living space and the screened porch is to be especially recommended. Such an opening about eight feet wide, and framing three- or four-fold, or sliding, doors, by throwing together the limited space allotments of living space and porch, makes for a spaciousness much desired on occasion.
Something on the subject of chimneys cries to be heard, and since chimneys have no separate entity in these discussions, their case must be presented and pressed by cabins, as "next friend."
In the "what-not" or "mission" period of the discredited past, some individualist seems to have been possessed of a grim determination and an hypnotic ability to implant his school of debased thought in chimneys for log cabins through the length and breadth of the land. It must have been the life-long fixation of one crusading apostle. Nothing else will account for such far-flung and ardent faith in the sole and supreme appropriateness of boulder masonry for this purpose. The unfortunate circumstance is further aggravated by a quaint conviction that the less structural in appearance, the less evident the bonding mortar, and the less apparent any reliance on physical laws for stability, the happier and more creditable the accomplishment. Need it be more than pointed out that from time immemorial good stonework has always been that stonework which appears incapable of toppling even if all mortar were to be magically removed? It is highly possible that recurrently through history there have been revolutionary viewpoints determined to go counter to what probably seemed at the moment just trite and old-fashioned in masonry technique. This is mere speculation, of course, because somehow the evidence of such revolutionary experimentation, except that of the cited sponsor of "peanut brittle" or "grape cluster" chimney techniques for log cabins, has not survived the ravages of time to our day. It is indeed regrettable that this non-survival went unnoted by the most recent proponent, whose disciples, over the years, might have been spared many chimney replacements which, if not necessitated by actual collapse, then certainly blasted to ruin by the trumpets of good taste. As from time to time these reconstructions must be made, it is hoped that the reconstructors will appraise the chimney survivals of the American pioneer, and if they are led to offend with globular masonry no more often than did he, a weird ghost will have been laid.
When the timber resources of the American frontier seemed limitless, it was usual to lay the starting logs of a cabin directly on the ground, without supporting stone foundations. When after a time the logs in contact with the earth had rotted to a point where the cabin commenced to list and sag, another cabin was built and the earlier one abandoned. This, it seems, in the economy of the frontier, was more reasonable than to have provided a foundation under the earlier cabin. Regardless of the pious respect a log cabin builder of the present must have for the traditions of the past, the changed economy of our day demands that his cabin be preserved against deterioration by the use of masonry or concrete supporting walls or posts that extend well above grade.
HERE IS A PARK BUILDING that often, and with propriety, can recall in its externals the typical pioneer homestead of a locality. In its essentials, the custodian's dwelling, more than any other park structure, is closely similar to the pioneer cabin. This fact makes possible recall of traditional lines and colloquialisms without too evident struggle, which cannot always be said of adaptations in which the old forms and the modern requirements are not so well related.
Thus we may appropriately house the custodian and other park attendants in characteristic frontier log and stone structures, over a wide area geographically, subject to regional variations. Over less-extended areas Spanish, Pueblo, the several manifestations of the Colonial, and other traditional expressions, born of historic background, local materials, and climatic considerations, will be the precedent for the residential structures within a park.
The design of the usual custodian's dwelling, not combined with other needs, is simply the problem of the small, rural dwelling, with a stressing of the importance of fitness to environment. So with living quarters provided for the naturalist, ranger or other personnel of a large park, where the requirement is the accommodation of a family unit. In the instance of the isolated park of considerable area, the problem sometimes varies or expands to embrace barracks or dormitory housing for groups of unmarried employees.
Sometimes, for purposes of control, economy or other reason, living quarters for custodian, concessionaire, and other personnel are combined with other park needs in structures, such as recreation or administration buildings, food concession, entrance gates and checking stations. In a park of limited size this is a logical development in avoidance of small, independent buildings ruinously crowding the area.
Comfortable, well-maintained living quarters in which the park custodian and his family, or other attendants housed, can take personal pride, will undoubtedly find reflection in the attitude of each employee toward maintenance of the public area. It is but natural that patched-up, ramshackle living quarters will influence unfavorably the standards of general park operation.
Since the quarters provided actually supplement the salary paid to custodian or other attendant, it seems desirable and logical that quarters and salary be reasonably scaled to each other. Neither commodious residence in lieu of decent salary, nor substantial salary in lieu of decent living quarters is a satisfactory alternative for living quarters and salary in an appropriate relationship. If this relationship were more carefully considered generally a frequent cause of dissatisfaction on the part of personnel could be eliminated.
The typical custodian's residence is a five-room house, efficiently and compactly planned, with consideration given to climatic conditions, the comfort of the occupants, the traditions of the locality, and the budgetary limitations of both park and occupant. Its location is worthy of careful study. This should be convenient to those points which demand the closest supervision by the custodian or other attendant, yet should not obtrusively invade areas of intensive use by the public. An attendant's residence too convenient to an entrance point tends to put the employee and members of his family "on call" twenty-four hours a day. This is neither fair to them nor to the best interests of the park, and is happily avoided only if the chosen site offers a reasonable amount of privacy during the hours off duty.
THAT FACILITY least contacted by the using public, the maintenance building in parks, needs to make least effort in gesture to its environment, if it is properly located. Generally speaking, its location is off the track beaten by park patrons, and is an isolated and well-obscured one, where this stepchild among park structures need not suffer unfavorable comparison with necessarily more self-conscious and better groomed neighbors. This is not to say that it need not be conveniently located. Inconspicuous convenience is the qualification. If such a site is not available, then the service building must go in for protective coloration, and perhaps to a greater degree than other buildings because it is so completely nonrecreational and without the saving grace of very apparent direct benefit to the public itself. Its reason for being is so little sensed by the unanalytical public mind that its presence is more than likely to be subconsciously resented.
The typical service or facilitating buildings within parks provide for the housing of trucks, equipment, implements and supplies necessary to park maintenance. They are sometimes referred to as maintenance, utility or equipment buildings. Often provision must be made for the stabling of work horses, or of one or more saddle horses used by caretaker, ranger or others of the park personnel in their duties. This leads to need for space in which to store wagons and feed. Repair shop, carpenter and paint shop, and winter storage space for park furniture are among space requirements not unusual to parks of any considerable size. These and countless other service space needs crop up so progressively during park development that the service building seems always to be in process of change, or in crying need of it. Indeed it is foolhardy to look upon
Copyright Text: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Description: This metadata record describes details of National Park Service (NPS) buildings spatial data contributed to the NPS buildings aggregated dataset by the park unit specified in the NPS Unit element of this metadata record. The data files referred to in this record are the NPS Buildings aggregated point and polygons shapefiles, not the individual park unit shapefiles. The NPS Buildings aggregated point and polygons shapefiles are in the NPS Buildings Data Transfer Standard. This data transfer standard describes a model for buildings depicted using points and polygons. This data set includes both buildings that currently exist as well as sites of those that have been relocated or destroyed. Only features of a non-sensitive nature and freely available to the public are included (although the model has been designed to accommodate sensitive data in the future, if needed). Multiple point and polygon geometries may coexist and are differentiated by point and polygon type. All buildings of interest to the National Park Service are included, including those not owned by the NPS but located within authorized park boundaries and facilities that are leased by the NPS and cooperators which are located outside park boundaries. Only structures with a roof, commonly enclosed by walls, and designed for storage, human occupancy or shelters for animals are included. Other structures not designed for occupancy such as fences or bridges are excluded. Buildings include offices, warehouses, post offices, hospitals, prisons, schools, housing and storage units. Attribute data are intentionally limited to those necessary for spatial data maintenance and stewardship. Data from external database systems are not included. The means to maintain unique identifiers for each building (BuildingID) is through use of Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) assigned by the database. Information about the source and vintage of individual points and polygons are documented within the Edit_Date and Polygon_Notes attributes. An accurate representation of all current and former buildings that are of interest to the NPS is required by many programmatic functions, including but not limited to Facilities, Structural Fire, Homeland Security and Cultural/Natural Resource Management. Building information is also needed by NPS personnel, cooperators, and the public for map display and analysis. This data set is intended to be a comprehensive inventory of all buildings of interest to the NPS. This data set provides feature geometry and is intended to be supplemented with attributes maintained by other external database systems. This is the NPS GIS buildings data transfer standard that has been modified for public use. This standard is sponsored by the NPS GIS Committee in cooperation with the Resource Information Management Division. The principal data steward shall be the RIMD through the coordinated contributions and stewardship of many parks and programs. The National Park Service (NPS) manages nearly 400 sites, including national parks, monuments, seashores and recreation areas. Other sites are located outside park boundaries and support administrative, research, inventory and monitoring functions of the Service. Together these sites include a wide variety of contemporary and historic buildings, as well as locations of former buildings, owned, managed, or used by the NPS. Many programmatic functions of the Service require geographic and attribute information about these features, including Facilities Management, Structural Fire, Protection, Homeland Security, and Cultural/Natural Resource Management. Geospatial data for these features have traditionally been collected by individual parks without formal standards and in a variety of formats. Several NPS programs have inventoried and assigned unique identifiers for building structures, but only for those features meeting program-specific purposes. No single inventory includes all the buildings of interest to parks and the Service. In order to create an enterprise data set for the NPS, the NPS GIS Program is adopting a series of data standards that meet the needs of national programs, park-based analysis, and efficient data exchange with national initiatives such as The National Map. The most effective and recommended strategy to accomplish this goal is to develop a normalized database with related data in external tables. The NPS Building Geodatabase Implementation Plan provides the preferred NPS solution and should be utilized whenever possible. This NPS Building Polygon Transfer Standard should only be used if the geodatabase solution is impractical for a specific application or to transfer buildings data in the most generic format possible. The attributes in this standard are stored with the feature geometry. This buildings data layer accommodates multiple building feature types within the same data set. For example, building polygons have building perimeters, envelope polygons, building buffers and obscured polygons. All of which can exist for the same building. In order to maintain alternative geometry for a single feature, a unique identifier for both the building and geometry is needed. A Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) is used to populate the unique building (BLDG_ID) and building geometry (Geometry_ID) fields. These values should be automatically assigned as data are entered into the layer. NPS requirements are diverse and a wide variety of methods will be employed to enter building geometries, including GPS and digitized orthophotos. The positional precision of the spatial data may exceed its accuracy. (Precision refers to the ability to distinguish between small quantities or distances in measurement, while accuracy refers to freedom from error--in this case, how closely a feature is represented with respect to its true location. For example, a building footprint may require multiple points located 5 or 10 feet apart in order to adequately capture structure shape, even though the horizontal positional accuracy of these points may be 20 feet from their true locations.).
IF, IN THE ARRANGING of material of this collection, a certain latitude, not to say license, could not be assumed to be charitably granted the compilers by the readers, this heading would have little reason for being. For while, if asked to name a half dozen structures justified by need within parks, a reader will probably name an administration building as one of them, he might be somewhat in a fog if asked to describe just what, specifically, constitutes one. The embarrassing question will not be pressed upon the reader. Rather will the difficult duty of seeking the answer be here assumed and herein attempted, without, however, any certain expectancy of pulling a rabbit from an empty hat.
In theory the administration building is headquarters for directing effort and business management of the park area. Actually it may be a vest pocket, a desk, a room, perhaps supplemented with typewriter, adding machine, safe, possibly even two or more rooms with multiplication of these accessories. But few, if any, examples of administration buildings are known to exist as entities, separate from other functions. There are gate lodges, custodian's dwellings, community buildings, recreation pavilions, dining concessions, and numerous combinations of functions, all termed administration buildings. An appraisal of the use and of the space devoted to this intangible business of administration will usually demonstrate that the designation of the building is something of a courtesy title, if not actually a misnomer.
This widespread paradox exists very naturally and very logically. It is probably right that the point of control, the symbol of supervisory authority, should have importance, even dominance, among park buildings. It is quite pardonable that the limited space demand of administrative function should augment itself by the borrowed bulk of less significant space requirements and give name to the resulting combination structure. The tail is allowed to wag the dog with more than usual justification.
Structures dignified by the designation "administration building" often tend to prominence of location and austerity of treatment that arrogantly imply special prerogative to compete with Nature as the "feature" of the natural park. Such boorish behavior can no more be condoned in Park Building No. 1 than in lesser park structures.
Illustrated hereinafter are numerous buildings, one function of which is administration. Some include closely related functions, others combine facilities ill-related to the business of administration. In so far as these avoid the blight of several scattered structures to result in a single structure free of pompous pretensions, the multi-purpose building masquerading as administration building is not unreasonable. Rather does it seem to be a solution worthy of encouragement.
ALTHOUGH perhaps most of the many recreational facilities found in natural parks are with varying frequency let out as concessions, it is elected within this classification to treat only of the concession which dispenses by sale rather than by rental, and purveys to the recreationist food supplies, soft drinks, candies, tobacco, toys, prepared light lunches and meals. After all, it is this usage that comes first to mind at mention of the word, and the curb on verbosity that this limitation insures, while it comes hard for the pen in hand, will be a source of keen satisfaction to readers. A less restrictive interpretation of the word would lead to deadly duplication of the elsewhere dissected bathhouse, boathouse, and other structural media in promotion of active recreation.
Thus the concession building, as here discussed, is actually the corner store, delicatessen, restaurant, or even the hotel (in cases where overnight accommodation is offered), transplanted into the park area for the convenience of the park visitors. It may be some unpedigreed cross combination of two or more of these urban facilities, as it settles itself in adjustment to the demands of the recreation crowd and to its new environment.
If not extensive in size, the concession is very apt to seek association under the same roof with other nonconcession facilities or services, in order that it may be where the crowd is. This is essential to its commercial success, which is quite as necessary in a park environment as in the village. Other park facilities may exist by virtue of subsidy, but the concession is called upon to pay its way.
Since it must be located at the "cross roads" of the park, and must proclaim itself to the public, it cannot be exactly the shy violet among park buildings. It must announce its commercial traffic unmistakably but with subtlety. It is the Jekyll and Hyde among park structures. It is asked to walk in the paths of quiet beauty and of commercial solvency at one and the same time, though these may lead in opposite directions. It is scarcely a wonder that the concession building, successful both as a park structure and as a commercial venture, is not common.
Perhaps the greatest fault to be found with concession buildings on the whole is their lag in attaining the standards urged for park structures generally. There is recent evidence to indicate that this shortcoming is in process of correction. It is hoped that past tendencies to flimsiness, the temporary and ultra-commercial in appearance, are being overcome.
There is a practical need in connection with concession buildings, large and small, that is almost invariably underestimated. This is the space requirement for supplies. The sale of food, soft drinks, and other articles dispensed by the park concession involve not only much garbage and rubbish, but the handling and temporary storage of containers for soft drink and milk bottles, and the like, awaiting collection. These bulk to a space need that is hardly ever correctly foreseen, and eventually force the building of an addition or enclosure to screen the unsightly debris from public view. Because funds for second thoughts are grudgingly given, and because the initial shortage of space leads to a desire for an overabundance, the addition is apt to be of inferior construction and down-at-heel appearance. Practicability is served but quality is depreciated in the process.
Where the nearest overnight accommodations are very distant from the park, it sometimes becomes expedient to provide them within the confines of the park itself. This is often handled as a concession, and is termed a lodge, inn, or guest house. It is not a facility to be promoted in a natural park. Rather is it to be undertaken only when any increasing demand for it cannot longer be resisted. It is a "civilizing" influence that tends to distort the true concept of the natural park and to frustrate the public's basic and prior interest in natural parks safeguarded against the artificial.
AMONG BUILDINGS THAT HAVE COME to be regarded as on occasion justified within our present conception of a natural park, the cabin alone has the favorable advantage of long familiarity to us in woodland and meadow. So accustomed have we become to the survivals of frontier cabins that dot the countryside that we have grown to look upon them as almost indigenous to a natural setting. Of all park structures, those cabins which echo the pioneer theme in their outward appearance, whether constructed of logs, shakes or native stone, tend to jar us least with any feeling that they are unwelcome. The fact that park cabins are usually erected in colonies or groups—which frontier cabins as a rule were not—destroys the feeling of almost complete fitness that is produced by a single primitive cabin. The further fact that the true cost of such structures is usually much higher than their purpose or the prospective income from them would justify imposes upon the designer the necessity of availing himself of cheaper and more easily handled materials, and of using them the best way he can. Hence these groups are something of a dissonance in parks, acceptable only when their obtrusiveness is minimized insofar as possible.
When occupied, the cabin becomes in effect private property, serving an infinitesimal portion of the park-using public. In consequence, if the cabin on public lands is to justify itself it is essential that it at least pay its way during its lifetime, and that charges for its use should bear a logical relationship to its true cost. Any evaluation of that cost which fails to assign a reasonable value to materials acquired on the site or to all labor, however compensated, would be faulty.
A tendency frequently observed in connection with cabin groups is to spread the effects of their presence over a needlessly large area, on the assumption that the occupants of each are entitled to complete seclusion. In groups composed of the simplest cabin types this either compels a multiplication of toilet installations or renders the use of central facilities so difficult that the cabin occupant, particularly after dark, will frequently not go to the required trouble, with consequent development of unpleasant and unsanitary conditions. It also compels establishment of additional water outlets—one more item of cost.
Even in the case of cabin groups equipped with toilets and with running water, wide separation means added road construction to make them accessible and greatly increased costs of water distribution and sewage disposal. After all it seems fair to assume that where cabins are erected in parks, their purpose is to facilitate enjoyment of the park itself and that complete seclusion during the hours when they are occupied is not the supremely important goal it is so frequently assumed to be.
Often overlooked, but certainly the primary objective in providing cabins in public parks, should be adjustment of cost and facilities to the income range of the using public. There ought to be just as sincere effort to make habitable vacation shelter available to the patron of very limited means as there now exists an enthusiasm to supply the more ample facilities which the higher income brackets can afford and demand. Reasonable assumption of a range of rentals suggests the logic of three basic types of vacation cabins. A large proportion may well provide accommodations for five persons as the average American family group.
The simplest type of cabin, the "Student" or "Tourist" class (to initiate the figure of the passenger liner), must seek to bring the required minimum of space need in shelter within a most rigid limitation of cost, which must bear an arithmetical relation to the very limited rent the humble park user can afford to pay. This problem will tax the ingenuity of the ablest designer capable and desirous of producing a nice relationship between traditional charm and reasoned practicability. Of necessity such a cabin must be a very simple affair, affording merely the most compact of sleeping accommodations and small living space. In many localities an open or screened porch will be desirable or necessary. But required economy will compel the omission of toilet and bathing facilities, and even fireplace and kitchen that is more than mere cabinet, alcove or closet, from this simplest type of cabin. Group toilet and bathing facilities, and provision of very limited and compact kitchen equipment will naturally reduce the cabin unit cost, as compared with that of cabin groups in which toilet, bathing and more complete cooking facilities are integral parts of each cabin. A possible alternative for the very modest kitchen allowable within the simplest cabin is an outdoor camp stove, preferably with sheltering roof. If strategically located the camp stove may be a multiple unit and the kitchen shelter thus made to serve several cabins. Such is the prospectus for recreational or vacational cabin housing within the normal budget range of the great majority, and possible then, it should be borne in mind, for brief periods only and by dint of the most careful economy on the part of the family unit.
A narrowing field of potential users results when more ample space and added facilities, naturally accompanied by mounting costs and proportionately higher rental charges, are offered in "Second Cabin Class." Cabins of this type contain two rooms and a kitchenette. Both rooms should provide for sleeping. The kitchenette will tend to be something more than the simpler cabin type provides. A fireplace is an allowable feature, since the larger cabin will probably have a longer season of use. In the absence of a central recreation building as a gathering place, the cabin unit is forced to a greater self-sufficiency. Toilet and bath facilities within this class of cabin, while certainly to be desired, are hardly to be encouraged, in the face of the cost of these accessories.
The distinguishing features of cabins of the next group, the "First Cabin Class," are toilet and bath facilities, along with perhaps added spaciousness and greater privacy in sleeping quarters. Arbitrary pronouncement of limitations in space and facilities for these cabins is considered beyond the province of this general discussion.
When examples of the "First Cabin Class" give hint of elaboration to the point of becoming "Cabins de Luxe" or "Royal Suites" their appropriateness within natural parks will be challenged by many and defended by a few. Certainly such cabins are only justifiable if the vacancy ratio is negligible.
At the lack of spread in cabin facilities and rentals observable in many parks, just criticism can be leveled. It would seem not only to be better park planning, but better business planning, to have accommodations to offer over a wide price range and bearing some logical ratio to the wide income range that prevails among park patrons. It might be pointed out as an abuse of democratic principles if the benefits of park areas are withdrawn from availability to the many to the selfish enjoyment of the few. An abundant provision of cabins such as only the few can afford, and a blind, or calloused, disregard of the budget limits of the vast majority, are not social arithmetic.
It is not argued that the several "classes" of cabins must rub elbows in the park area as a condition of serving with equality the patrons of different social or financial strata. On the contrary, this is something to be rigidly avoided in layout. There is less emphasis on social differences and therefore less dissatisfaction for all concerned in a discreet grouping of cabins of each type somewhat to themselves.
While many cabins have been built as a single room large enough to provide sleeping accommodations for an average family, it is desirable even in such simple cabins to afford dressing space privacy by means of partitions, or curtains on poles, around one or more of the bed locations. Furthermore, the potential tenants are not always a family group, and failure to provide some measure of privacy results in a narrowing down of the tenant field.
Among space-saving possibilities to be carefully weighed by cabin designers with praiseworthy urge to provide the utmost for the cabin dollar, a wide opening between the enclosed living space and the screened porch is to be especially recommended. Such an opening about eight feet wide, and framing three- or four-fold, or sliding, doors, by throwing together the limited space allotments of living space and porch, makes for a spaciousness much desired on occasion.
Something on the subject of chimneys cries to be heard, and since chimneys have no separate entity in these discussions, their case must be presented and pressed by cabins, as "next friend."
In the "what-not" or "mission" period of the discredited past, some individualist seems to have been possessed of a grim determination and an hypnotic ability to implant his school of debased thought in chimneys for log cabins through the length and breadth of the land. It must have been the life-long fixation of one crusading apostle. Nothing else will account for such far-flung and ardent faith in the sole and supreme appropriateness of boulder masonry for this purpose. The unfortunate circumstance is further aggravated by a quaint conviction that the less structural in appearance, the less evident the bonding mortar, and the less apparent any reliance on physical laws for stability, the happier and more creditable the accomplishment. Need it be more than pointed out that from time immemorial good stonework has always been that stonework which appears incapable of toppling even if all mortar were to be magically removed? It is highly possible that recurrently through history there have been revolutionary viewpoints determined to go counter to what probably seemed at the moment just trite and old-fashioned in masonry technique. This is mere speculation, of course, because somehow the evidence of such revolutionary experimentation, except that of the cited sponsor of "peanut brittle" or "grape cluster" chimney techniques for log cabins, has not survived the ravages of time to our day. It is indeed regrettable that this non-survival went unnoted by the most recent proponent, whose disciples, over the years, might have been spared many chimney replacements which, if not necessitated by actual collapse, then certainly blasted to ruin by the trumpets of good taste. As from time to time these reconstructions must be made, it is hoped that the reconstructors will appraise the chimney survivals of the American pioneer, and if they are led to offend with globular masonry no more often than did he, a weird ghost will have been laid.
When the timber resources of the American frontier seemed limitless, it was usual to lay the starting logs of a cabin directly on the ground, without supporting stone foundations. When after a time the logs in contact with the earth had rotted to a point where the cabin commenced to list and sag, another cabin was built and the earlier one abandoned. This, it seems, in the economy of the frontier, was more reasonable than to have provided a foundation under the earlier cabin. Regardless of the pious respect a log cabin builder of the present must have for the traditions of the past, the changed economy of our day demands that his cabin be preserved against deterioration by the use of masonry or concrete supporting walls or posts that extend well above grade.
HERE IS A PARK BUILDING that often, and with propriety, can recall in its externals the typical pioneer homestead of a locality. In its essentials, the custodian's dwelling, more than any other park structure, is closely similar to the pioneer cabin. This fact makes possible recall of traditional lines and colloquialisms without too evident struggle, which cannot always be said of adaptations in which the old forms and the modern requirements are not so well related.
Thus we may appropriately house the custodian and other park attendants in characteristic frontier log and stone structures, over a wide area geographically, subject to regional variations. Over less-extended areas Spanish, Pueblo, the several manifestations of the Colonial, and other traditional expressions, born of historic background, local materials, and climatic considerations, will be the precedent for the residential structures within a park.
The design of the usual custodian's dwelling, not combined with other needs, is simply the problem of the small, rural dwelling, with a stressing of the importance of fitness to environment. So with living quarters provided for the naturalist, ranger or other personnel of a large park, where the requirement is the accommodation of a family unit. In the instance of the isolated park of considerable area, the problem sometimes varies or expands to embrace barracks or dormitory housing for groups of unmarried employees.
Sometimes, for purposes of control, economy or other reason, living quarters for custodian, concessionaire, and other personnel are combined with other park needs in structures, such as recreation or administration buildings, food concession, entrance gates and checking stations. In a park of limited size this is a logical development in avoidance of small, independent buildings ruinously crowding the area.
Comfortable, well-maintained living quarters in which the park custodian and his family, or other attendants housed, can take personal pride, will undoubtedly find reflection in the attitude of each employee toward maintenance of the public area. It is but natural that patched-up, ramshackle living quarters will influence unfavorably the standards of general park operation.
Since the quarters provided actually supplement the salary paid to custodian or other attendant, it seems desirable and logical that quarters and salary be reasonably scaled to each other. Neither commodious residence in lieu of decent salary, nor substantial salary in lieu of decent living quarters is a satisfactory alternative for living quarters and salary in an appropriate relationship. If this relationship were more carefully considered generally a frequent cause of dissatisfaction on the part of personnel could be eliminated.
The typical custodian's residence is a five-room house, efficiently and compactly planned, with consideration given to climatic conditions, the comfort of the occupants, the traditions of the locality, and the budgetary limitations of both park and occupant. Its location is worthy of careful study. This should be convenient to those points which demand the closest supervision by the custodian or other attendant, yet should not obtrusively invade areas of intensive use by the public. An attendant's residence too convenient to an entrance point tends to put the employee and members of his family "on call" twenty-four hours a day. This is neither fair to them nor to the best interests of the park, and is happily avoided only if the chosen site offers a reasonable amount of privacy during the hours off duty.
THAT FACILITY least contacted by the using public, the maintenance building in parks, needs to make least effort in gesture to its environment, if it is properly located. Generally speaking, its location is off the track beaten by park patrons, and is an isolated and well-obscured one, where this stepchild among park structures need not suffer unfavorable comparison with necessarily more self-conscious and better groomed neighbors. This is not to say that it need not be conveniently located. Inconspicuous convenience is the qualification. If such a site is not available, then the service building must go in for protective coloration, and perhaps to a greater degree than other buildings because it is so completely nonrecreational and without the saving grace of very apparent direct benefit to the public itself. Its reason for being is so little sensed by the unanalytical public mind that its presence is more than likely to be subconsciously resented.
The typical service or facilitating buildings within parks provide for the housing of trucks, equipment, implements and supplies necessary to park maintenance. They are sometimes referred to as maintenance, utility or equipment buildings. Often provision must be made for the stabling of work horses, or of one or more saddle horses used by caretaker, ranger or others of the park personnel in their duties. This leads to need for space in which to store wagons and feed. Repair shop, carpenter and paint shop, and winter storage space for park furniture are among space requirements not unusual to parks of any considerable size. These and countless other service space needs crop up so progressively during park development that the service building seems always to be in process of change, or in crying need of it. Indeed it is foolhardy to look upon
Copyright Text: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
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