Your Name
Lainy Ross
Submitted For
Module 3 - Points to Ponder
Please share your comments on 3 of the following Points to Ponder questions. (Choose 3 of the questions below.)
Why is it important to accurately model the land features of your project site with a toposurface?
- Whether a building is on a sloped landscape or a flat one, working to ensure collaboration between the land and the building is extremely important. In terms of technicalities, if your building is on a slope, it's important to either excavate part of the hill out to place your building in, or build a flat surface on top of the hill. Much of nature is not completely flat, and so understanding the land before starting building planning is the first step an architect and building team should take. If you just place a home on top of a flat hill when modeling, it creates a very inaccurate representation of what said home will actually be like, how it will interact with the land, etc.
When designing a project...
- I believe that the building should adapt to the terrain. Architecture is all about finding a mutual respect for the land and building. The land was there first, and so it's important to keep the integrity of that land in tact when designing. That is not to say that you should not be able to dig or change the land at all during the process, just that the house should become a part of the land, not the other way around. Architecture is about finding that collaboration between nature and structure, so it's important to prioritize the integrity of the land.
Why do stairs follow specific proportions with a set relationship between the tread length and riser height?
- Stairs are one of the seemingly simplest parts of designing to people who haven't worked in the field before. They are more than a means to an end, however, of getting from one floor to another. They add design and detail to a home or building, however, it's important not to let that detail get in the way of function, or safety. The specific proportions aren't designed to follow a certain aesthetic, they are designed for people's safety. If the stairs are left as an afterthought in the design process and pushed aside until building begins, it leaves a lot of room for unforeseen issues to come in and delay or prohibit the process. In including stairs in the building modeling process, it allows the designer to work with the ideas and functions before setting anything in stone, literall