1. Building Placement in Model Railroad
Scenery

2. Model railroaders often focus on scenery in terms of rocks
and trees, without considering how the built forms,
especially commercial and residential architecture, will fit
into the scene. In the real world, much of the scenic context
is determined by the houses, roads, stores, other man-
made features. These can look out-of-place or otherwise
wrong if they are just dropped onto a layout without proper
planning and understanding.

3. Selective compression is a familiar term to most model
railroaders, referring to our need to retain the distinctive
character of a building while reducing its actual size, such
as cutting it down from 5 structural bays to 4. In order to do
so convincingly, though, one must have a basic
understanding of how the building functions, so that the
"edited" building still feels right. For instance, a common
place modelers undercut is the truck loading dock - there
must be enough paved area there for a truck to maneuver
into place.

4. This can eat up a lot of the real estate on a layout, so if you
cannot afford the area then it might be best not to show a
truck dock, perhaps under the assumption that it is on the
back side or an unmodeled portion of the industry.
However, one industry with a right-sized truck dock can
look a lot more convincing that several hopelessly
squeezed buildings, so it might be worthwhile to reserve the
paved area.

5. Roads are often undersized on layouts, which can make
them seem toy-like and ruin a carefully crafted illusion. Just
as railroad track has requirements such as minimum radius
and subroadbed, roads should be given similar
consideration. Imagine yourself in a scale auto, driving
along at a comfortable 35 mph; how would you handle the
lack of a shoulder, the narrow lanes, or the abrupt angular
turns that seem to occur regularly on layouts? Would you
lose a muffler as you bottom out where the slope abruptly
changes?

6. There may be some instances in real life where such
features occur, but they are rare, and there is always a
clear reason for it, such as hard 90-degree turns on a
country road that fits between cornfields. If you don't
provide a clear reason for your 15 mph curve, it will look
conspicuously wrong. Consider, too, that in most cases the
actual Right-of-Way for a road is about twice the actual
paved width, so there should be swaths of manicured ROW
alongside the road, and privately-owned buildings should
be set back.

7. Property lines and building setbacks are invisible features
of real-world real estate which govern the locations of
buildings. Consider what portions of your terrain is owned,
and add features such as fence lines to reinforce the notion
that humans dwell on this land. Where roads run, imagine
what the width of the ROW is and then establish your
buildings with a reasonable set back from this. The front
yard that results from such thinking will help things to feel
right, even if you selectively compress this setback to
minimal dimensions.

8. Buildings tend to have foundations, while model building kits
tend to lack them. Consider replacing whatever foundation
comes in a given building kit with your own scratchbuilt one,
so that you can make it much deeper. The reason for doing
so is that it will allow you to actually bury the foundation into
the "soil", rather than sitting on top of the scenery shell. If you
make the foundation separate from the building's walls, the
foundation can be placed as you work on finished scenery,
while the building proper can just sit on top of the foundation.
This method allows ground to slope around the building,
which it should, even if it is just a little bit. Also, it avoids
having gaps under the building edges.

9. Don't set all buildings oriented towards the railroad or towards
the edge of the layout. Instead, consider where a major road
would run through the scene, even if that road is effectively on
the backdrop, and orient the buildings such that they face the
vehicular traffic. Railroad tracks usually run behind buildings or
between them, and our layout edges tend to follow the tracks,
so we should rarely see the front facades of buildings straight
on.
Resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKUhHcnBkYY
http://ezinearticles.com/?Building-Placement-in-Model-Railroad-
Scenery&id=6168297

10. Thank you!