So in this video, I'm going to be answering a pretty common question
Do I need to be good at math to become an architect?
Math is involved in every step of an architecture project, and I'd say
it does play a pretty big part in turning a concept into a real building.
But while architects do use math on a daily basis,
it's not exactly in the way that most people think
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Channel.
My name is Dami, and I'm an architect in beautiful Vancouver, B.C.
And today we're going to talk about a couple of different ways we use math
to design buildings and make them come to life.
This video is sponsored by Autodesk.
Click on the description to get a free 30 day trial.
Probably the most common use of math for us is when calculating the area.
So whether we're designing a new building or renovating an existing space,
we need to show the client how much area we're creating or gaining or losing.
Because if this math doesn't work out,
chances are the project won't go through.
So you get the overall gross floor area of the building
by multiplying the building's length and width.
And then for each space that you create within the building.
But most architects these days use a BIM modeling system.
And personally, I use Revit, and actually the modeling software
does most of these basic calculations for you.
Meaning you most likely never have to
measure dimensions or calculate areas by hand.
However, we do still manually calculate certain things,
like when we're massing up the building
the building's
massing, or the form is driven by what we call a floor space ratio.
And pretty much every real building that you design starts with this constraint.
Most cities or jurisdictions will have regulations and guidance
on how big or how dense or how tall you can build on a particular site.
This basically ensures that you don't get any buildings
that are totally out of scale from its context.
Typically, every property has what you call
a floor space ratio or FSR for short.
And that's a number.
It's a ratio of a building's total gross floor area
to the size of the land that the building's on.
So this measures the density of the site.
And in order for you to figure out how much floor area you can build,
you take the area of your site and multiply it by the FSR.
So let's say your property is 45 meters by 35 meters,
and that would be 1575 square meters.
And let's say you have an FSR of 3.0
That means you can build up to 4725 square meters.
Where it becomes kind of interesting is when you combine those
with other constraints for your project, it can be legal
constraints like set backs or height limits, or it can be
physical constraints like views or topography or soil conditions.
Or it could even be budgetary constraints.
For example, maybe the client only has money to build one story of the building.
So taking all of this into consideration,
you massage the massing of the building.
However, if this is a commercial building
owner, like a developer, this whole thing is pretty straightforward.
They're going to want to maximize the FSR so that they can build more
and they can sell more units so that they can make more profit.
So let's go back to my example for a sec.
The 45 by 35 meter site with the FSR of three
and the GFA of 4725 square meters.
And let's say your zoning regulations say you need to set back
six meters at the front and two meter on the sides.
The buildings
footprint is going to get smaller, meaning if you want to achieve that
4725 square meters, you're going to have to go taller.
And from here you can determine the height and the number of stories
for your building.
You're also going to want to factor
in any neighboring buildings or view corridors or trees
or anything that may suggest a different shape for your building.
You also want to factor in the market unit sizes.
We want to make sure that the units we're creating is kind of in the ballpark
of what's marketable for the developer.
So as you're sculpting, you're building based on some of these
constraints, you're going to be adjusting these areas as well.
Now, if you're zoning has a height
limit or setback that doesn't allow you to do what you want,
that's when you get into negotiations with the city into a process called rezoning.
All these setbacks and rules are guidelines.
But if you can make a really
strong argument for why your building can benefit the neighborhood
by deviating from this guideline, the city or the township, if they're open
minded, is going to want to work with you to help you make this happen.
And they're going to do this by helping you rezone the site
with a different set of rules.
All of this requires you to do some basic math,
and most of it can be done with a calculator or a simple spreadsheet.
One of the other misconceptions about architects is that we work alone
and that we are these lone creatives drafting late into the night
but we simply can't do our work without collaborating with other professionals.
BIM Collaborate Pro is a tool that makes this process a lot more efficient.
With the ability to seamlessly coordinate your model with your team
within a very secure common data environment.
It makes it easy to give feedback resolve issues
and just get a better overall view of your project so that your team
can see on track together by connecting your model with models
from other disciplines, it automatically detects
where clashes could happen and it helps you resolve them.
Typically, the architect is responsible for manually coordinating these elements,
but this is way more accurate and it saves us a lot of time.
Issues can be marked directly in the model,
which is then turned into a simple list that you can work through.
This means that you can easily leave notes or comments directly in the model
so that you or your team can resolve it and nothing gets missed.
Click on the description to get a free 30 day trial
So the next
area where we use math is for high level budgeting or costing.
So when we design buildings, we want to make sure
that we're not designing something that's going to be insanely expensive.
So we will typically have check in points throughout the project
with a cost estimate
or to make sure that we're kind of in the ballpark of the client's budget.
And we do costing at different points of a project
and they get more and more detailed as we progress the design.
For example, we'll do one at the schematic design stage.
We'll also do on up the design development stage, and we'll do one after
the construction documents as we fine tune the costing,
we go through the list and try to identify areas
that could be a cost savings to the client and that can range
from changing the structure or the shape of your building if it's
earlier on in the project, all the way down to the finishes that you pick.
And although the costing of the building is done by a cost estimate
or the architect does review all of those numbers
and make sure that all of those areas that they've calculated
based on are the correct areas, they are specialists and what they do.
So typically they know what's best and they know what they're costing.
But sometimes you might have found a product that kind of does the same job,
but it's like half the cost and in that case,
you can recommend that to the cost estimate or this is also
just pretty basic multiplication and just learning to use spreadsheets
and finally structure.
So when people think about math and architecture,
typically they think about architects calculating structural loads
but in reality, we don't really do that.
And even if we wanted to,
I don't think insurance companies would like that very much.
Because architects already take on so much liability for other work.
So typically we work with
structural engineers who designed the structure
and they take on that responsibility and that liability for the calculations.
For us, it's more about the high level understanding of structures
and having some basic conceptual framework for what we're designing,
and we just need to focus on areas that have an impact on the design.
For example, if you wanted to design the building to cantilever,
you know that it's going to need some beefy structural members under here.
So make sure you leave some room for that.
You also want to make sure your walls are aligned
to the structural grids as much as possible.
Or maybe you want to use exposed wood
beams for esthetic or sustainability purposes.
Once you have those ideas, you just work with your structural engineer
to find the exact sizing and spacing of those members and the overall system
so this is
generally the extent of how we use math in our day to day,
but we do borrow
a lot of mathematical principles for design.
For example, the golden ratio angles and proportions
and understanding
these principles is going to make you a better architect and a designer
so I hope this gave you guys some insights into how we use math.
It's really not a lot of math, and
it should never be the thing that hinders you from going into architecture.
However, there are specific skills that you should consider before
going into architecture, and if you're interested
in learning about those, check out my video right here.
I also have a video where I talk about the realities of going into construction
and other skills that would help you become a more successful architect.
I'll leave that video right here as well.
I also have a monthly newsletter where I share my insight things I'm
learning, reading or listening to, as well as a Discord channel
where you can chat with other people in this amazing community.
If you want to support the channel and listen in on interviews by me
with other industry professionals as well as access to other perks
I have membership tiers that you can
join, and I'll leave links to all of this in the description of the video.
And with that, I'll see you guys in the next video.
On this channel, we talk about architecture and design
and also some tools and strategies that can help us have more meaningful
and fulfilling careers in architecture.
So I hope this gave you guys some insights into how we use math.
It's really not a lot of math, and
it should never be the thing that hinders you from going into architecture.
However, there are specific skills that you should consider before
going into architecture,
and if you're interested in learning about those check out my video right here.
I also have a video where I talk about the realities of going into construction
and other skills that would help you become a more successful architect.
I'll leave that video right here as well.
I also have a monthly newsletter where I share my insight things I'm
learning, reading or listening to, as well as a discourse channel
where you can chat with other people in this amazing community.
If you want to support the channel and listen in on interviews by me
with other industry professionals as well as access to other perks,
I have membership tiers that you can
join, and I'll leave links to all of this in the description of the video.
And with that, I'll see you guys in the next video.
If you
found this video valuable, please like and subscribe in order
to touch more people with architecture and make the world
a better place.
For this video.
This video is a part in this video sponsored by Autodesk
in this video, I'm going to be answering a very in this video.
In this video, I'm going to be answering a very common question.
Do I need to be good at math?
Do I need to be good at math to become an architect?
Math is involved in every step of an architecture project,
and I see it does play a big and I'd say it does play
a pretty big part in turning a concept into a real building.
But while architects do
use math on a daily basis, I'm not
going to do this whole thing again.
OK, start from
so I hope this
so I hope this gave you guys some insights so I hope this
so I hope this gave you guys some insights into how we use math.
It's really not a lot of math and it shouldn't
ever be the thing that hinders you from going into architecture.
However, there are specific skills that you should consider before
going into architecture, and if you're interested
in learning about those, check out my video right here.
I also have a video like I also have a video
where I talk about the realities of going into construction
and other skills that would help you become a more successful architect.
I'll leave that video right here as well.
And with that, I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye.
OK, and just to the.