We continued working on our design program for the playhouse project we will be doing. We listed different spaces and items that will be included in the design.
We spent the hour planning a playhouse/garden house project for Sofia. We began creating a building program that we will use to create a set of conceptual design drawings.
We did some foundational discussion about the Cartesian coordinate system, and how two dimensional ordered pairs work. This is the coordinate system used by AutoCAD, so it is important to be familiar with it in order to successfully navigate and draw in the AutoCAD environment. We then covered and used the LINE command to create point to point lines in different directions, both absolutely and arbitrarily. We used ordered pairs from X/Y axes to define line endpoints, and angular designations to control the direction the lines were drawn, as well as arbitrarily "freehand" drawing lines. We covered functions like ORTHO, to constrain drawn lines to 90 degree directions, and OBJECT SNAPS to control the critical line points at which two lines meet. We used the ERASE, UNDO, and SELECTION BOX functions as well.
This was a "get to know you" session with Sofia. We also looked at the definition of architecture, and many of the aspects of the field. We discussed different approaches we could take with the class, and decided that we will use AutoCAD, and work on a playhouse design to accompany a garden she will be planning in science class. We began writing a program by listing some ideas for her playhouse. We also took a tour of AutoCAD to demonstrate a few basic commands and show what was possible with the program. Next class we will work on a few technical drawing exercises in AutoCAD.
