Overview
In this lesson, students explore how building modeling tools can be used to the process of area and space planning, which is often one of the first steps in the preliminary design process.
Client requirements for a project are often described in area budgets that allocate square footage targets to specific departments, programs, or functions. Designers typically use these targets as a starting point for a top-down design approach, allocating specific building areas to each of the budgets and tabulating the assignments to confirm that the program needs are being met. This approach enables designers to make high-level design decisions and assess their impact, long before the details of the individual rooms are mapped out.
As preliminary design progresses, additional details are added to the building model and the initial area allocations are typically divided into rooms with specific functions and occupancies. As the design matures, area and space planning continues in parallel with the design work to ensure that each iteration of the design continues to meets the client’s needs and requirements.
Students will follow this top-down approach to first allocate the total space available within a project into areas allocated to different uses, and then subdivide these areas into rooms with specific types to meet program needs.