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Hanlon, Daniel

ARCHITECTURE I

In Architecture I, students typically begin in the 9th grade, or freshman year of high school. They will be designing a 2-bedroom, 1-bath house with criteria determined by the instructor. To begin this process, students must complete a series of exercises in the architectural and drafting design textbook, Architecture Drafting and Design, 7th ed., by Hepler, Wallach, and Hepler. Students are expected to complete a series of sketches for their design, which sets the foundation for their year-long projects. Next, the students learn how to use Google SketchUp and create a full 3D model of their design. Lastly, they move from SketchUp to AutoCAD to develop their first standard detailed plans. This is explained in some detail below and some examples of student work are shown in the Architecture Student Project gallery on the previous page. The curriculum by which each lesson plan is created is available for download in the RESOURCES tab. At the end of this course, students will have enough skills for an entry-level internship position.

Hand Sketching

 

To start, students begin by sketching bubble diagrams of their imagined house design. These bubble sketches are refined until a rough design emerges. At this point, students will create preliminary sketches that can eventually be transferred onto graph paper. Once students have a completed detailed graph of their design, they recreate their house within Google SketchUp to visualize their design as a 3D model.



 

Google SketchUp

 

Google SketchUp has proven to be a valuable tool to help beginning students understand tricky concepts such as the structures of a roof or the design of a kitchen. The entire 2-bedroom, 1-bath house is created in Google SketchUp. This model is useful for teaching a variety of concepts throughout the course Students will reference the SketchUp model when creating 2D plans in AutoCAD.                        

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Intro to AutoCAD

 

Students are introduced to AutoCAD through a series of tutorial assignments designed to get them familiar with systems and tools in as short a time as possible. Once this is accomplished, students will generate a completely detailed floor plan of their 2-bedroom, 1-bath house design. They utilize the resources from their sketches and 3D model to help them create the AutoCAD plans. The students are allowed to update and improve the plan as they complete each phase of the process. Students will also create a complete electrical plan and four elevations of their model by the end of Architecture I.

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