DESIGN 101 Architectural Design | The INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN 101?

DESIGN 101 is the first course you are going to undertake once enrolled in architecture.  It is basically from design 101 to design 110. This will be your ladder. In order to complete the whole course, you have to finish 10 design courses. Each course is unique and is a pre requisite of the next higher design class.

Design 101 is an introduction to the basics of architectural design. This will enable you to learn the tools and the skills you need to become a designer and understand the principles in designing a structure.

While you are learning to develop your visual skills and the standard drafting,
Design 101 will develop your analytic skills. You will learn the value of space, functional grouping and minimum standards.

structures are categorized according to functions and complexity of design, therefore Design 101 will guide you through your learning process from designing basic structure, that is learning the first place where we got involved with in defining space and it's functionality.
What is it? that is the place you live in - your house.

1. Starting with your house - Have a look around you and observe what you see inside your house. Let your observation be focused on the spaces within your house and determine the function of each area that is within your house. Then let your observation be more focused on the building elements like the windows, doors and other details - this will help you become more familiar with the minimum standards.

The DESIGN PROCESS

This is your first journey to develop your design skills in architecture. The first stage will be the ANALYSIS. Let's determine and develop some design principles by taking the example below:
( you can also make your own sketch of your house and see how they are arranged. The floor plan as shown is a top view of the house. As you see the spaces arranged together, start drawing your own plan as you enter and then link them altogether)

a. In determining the space - What are the spaces  can you find inside your house?
you can list down all the spaces you see. Let's have an example on the plan shown below:
 


floor plan

  
These are your space requirements. 

starting from far left down, there are two groups of spaces that are arranged without any partition.

Notice the furniture placed in the first area, 3-seater and two-seater sofa with single sofa, center table, tv console and a cabinet. Can you now identify this area? Yes this is a

LIVING ROOM / AREA

second area, is a dining table with six chairs, this area is the

DINING AREA


Next one is a long corridor connecting 3 mores spaces:

One with an office table and chair, with credenza this space is a

PRIVATE OFFICE

Another one with a table with 3 chairs, sink, working counter, this is the

KITCHEN

and lastly, there is a water closed and a lavatory. This space is the

TOILET

You can also identify the stairs along, this is the access leading to the next floor level.

Putting them all together, you have now established the space that are available within a simple residence. These are:

LIVING AREA ,DINING AREA ,CORRIDOR, STAIRCASE, PRIVATE OFFICE, KITCHEN and the  TOILET                    
 

isometric view



b. In determining the function - How was it arranged? This is where you determine the public areas, private areas, semi-private and the common areas. This is what we call Functional Grouping

The best way to classify the spaces as private and semi-private and common area, we can best express this by balloon diagramming. Place a circle as to how the plan is arranged and identify the classification of its spaces.

Analyze: 

How are these space interrelates with one another other?
What are the areas that are considered private in relation to its function?
What are the areas that needs to be adjacent that will compliment to their function?
Can you arranged them better?

This is the best exercise to group the spaces together and analyze it according to the usage and interrelationship of each space.

In relation to the question "can you arrange them better?", this question is more appropriate to ask when you are analyzing the activities within. In exploring your idea within the design process, keep on thinking about the ways and means to improve your design in terms of arranging the space in accordance to the most efficient way of solving the problem.  


You can make your own arrangement and try to move each balloon representing the area. Make you own sketch and move the areas you think should be in close connection with each other. Once you have done that, you can make your own reason why you are placing that space next the space you think would be more reasonable. Arrows are good representation showing a circulation pattern. Draw an arrow to interconnect these spaces and determine which one should have direct access and which one should have indirect access.

After establishing your functional grouping, you can now start doing a single line presentation. What is the single line presentation? The balloon diagram is now translated into a more accurate space plan, that is the layout of your floor plan. As shown on this example, you are now going into the next phase of the design process.

c. In determining Minimum Standards - Do you see all the building elements that were put together? What do you see? if you noticed all those elements, these are the components within the building that were set to standards in relation to its size.

a. Let's start with the floor, do you see varying sizes? what's connecting the floor and the wall? what about the level changes from one area to the other, do you recognized the heights of each level change?  

b. what about the walls? do you see anything that are attached to it like the doors and  windows, do they have varying heights and widths?

c. and lastly, let's look at the ceiling. how are lights fixed? what are the attached elements that connects the ceiling and the wall? Aside from that, you can also see all the furniture that are within the rooms or areas. You can also observe that all have sizes relevant to the space and the usefulness of each furniture in relation to the end user - you. 

All these are set to a minimum standard in order to guide you, as the designer, to know the required size of each of the space you are dealing with.

DESIGN 101 Architectural Design | SPACE

What will I expect from Architectural course? | Architectural Design

Architectural Design course is a very interesting course. Maybe you will be asking "What will i expect from architectural course?"  well, let me give you a brief overview about architectural course.

This course is a five year curriculum with a required 2 year on-the-job training before you can become an architect. In the five year curriculum, you will be trained to become professional in this field. There major subjects that you need to pass and these major subjects are pre requisites in order for you to step up to the next level.

These subjects are:

Architectural Design and Planning
Visual Arts
Architectural Graphics
Building Technology and Utilities
History of Architecture
Theories of Architectural Design
Professional Practice

All of these subjects are distributed in your five year stay in the college. Architectural Design course is the main subject which is divided into 5 year study course from Architectural Design 1 to Architectural Design 10. 

landscape planning - an aerial view

Planning will be an introductory course on the Comprehensive architectural course that will lead to Urban and Regional Planning, Community Planning and Subdivision Planning.

You can pursue higher studies on these courses offered in Masteral Degree couse.

Visual Arts or Visual Technology is a course that will help you develop your visual presentation skills from the basic freehand drawing to 3dimensional presentation and large scale modeling presentation.

You will start with the basics of free hand drawing from line exercises to shades and shadows. This basic training will lead you to sketch what you see around you. These will challenge you to sketch existing structures so you can improve your visualization techniques from pencil, pen and ink to digital presentations. As shown on the examples below.

The left image is a pencil sketch as an exercise to visualize the architectural design of a house which is the basic designing skills developed in the introduction of the architectural design course.

Another example below is the pen and ink rendering of an existing building. There are Three major course in Visual Technology. 1. The use of pencil in visualization, 2. Is the use of Pen and Ink 3. Color Rendering using different mediums like water color, acrylic, markers and any color tools available in the market which artists use.

This is a water color rendering with pen and ink. This is a multi-media presentation on free hand drawings. 

As compared to the pen and ink rendering of this image below. The Visual Technology course will cover 2 years of study. The First year will be in two terms where you will have the Pencil and the Pen and Ink Presentation techniques.

The Second year will have two terms which are; the Multi-media presentation from Manual rendering to 3d rendering presentations for the first term and the latter will be the Scaled Modeling presentation.

This image is a created in 3d studio max. This is a 3d modeling and rendering presentation. Nowadays, this is the trend in the architectural design presentations.

Free hand sketches are still in the trend in architectural design presentations especially in presenting a schematic design where the architect's design study is on progress where ideas can still be changed. 

The design development stage can be more detailed and the use of 3d modeling using software to coordinate with the cad files of the proposed design is produced.

for larger projects where visualization is used in a more complicated presentations, the Scaled model is another advance feature in the visual technology course. It is a scaled model, where the actual size of the project is reduced its size. 

Here are some examples of scaled model:

Architectural Graphics will give you better understanding about graphic standards, basic drafting work, computer aided design and drafting.







Building Technology and Utilities deals with the Method of Construction, Building materials and specifications including the utilities sytem like the Sanitary systems, Mechanical and Electrical systems.




History of Architecture is the study of the History of Architecture itself from the ancient civilization up to our modern and millennial time. The best architectural design examples are in the past. This will give you an in depth knowledge about the history.





Theories of Architectural Design is also connected with the History. the design theories and principles were taken from the past design influences.





Professional Practice will be your guiding principle in your preparation for the practice of the profession. From the building laws, Fire and safety codes and other relevant laws concerning the construction of any structure in any localities. The laws concerning the practice and the most interesting part of how the architects are paid (method of compensation) and the architect's responsibilities and liabilities.





What is not included in the list but is essential is the Structural design course. This is included in the curriculum for you to understand the Strength of material and the durability of the structure.

Go back to Architectural Design Course here