Misc Definitions

Hippodrome: Race course surrounded by tiered seating

Tenant Mix: The makeup of the different stores and types of facilities in a shopping center.

Continental Seating: Widely spaced continuous rows

Carrel: A small desk featuring high sides meant to visually distract or isolate a user from its surroundings and others at adjacent desks.

Religious Definitions

Apse: The eastern or alter end of a church, usually semi-circular in plan

Baptistery: A building used for baptismal services

Cella: Inner enclosed room of an ancient temple

Baldacchino: Freestanding canopy supported by columns symbolically sheltering an altar, throne, or tomb

Nave: Main longitudinal part of a church

Narthex: Entrance vestibule of a church

Campanile: A bell tower

Abutment: A buttressing or supporting structure

Introduction

The individual is the measure of space because buildings involve solving problems of human function in a physical way.

• All standard dimensions are based on average human sizes and the typical human form. Excessive deviation can cause physiological and psychological stress. This is why a person may feel overexposed in a large space, or claustrophobic in a tight one. Note that people are generally unaware of standard dimensions, except when they are wrong… then it will cause discomfort (too small of a room)
• Therefore, human dimensions should be considered first, spatial dimensions second, then building dimensions third.

In designing any space, first you must decide what spaces are required, how big those spaces must be, and then how you will circulate from one space to another. This process is referred to as ‘programming’. Reference guides on this site for more information.

Typical Rules & Prototypes

Housing

Housing is the most fundamental of all building types.  This is because of the vastly different functions that will occur in each space and the breadth of housing in the world. A bedroom must be a place to rest, but can also be a study, a practice room, and a meeting room.

Considerations

• The liveability of units must be the basis of design, if the project is to have long lasting value and be successful.

• Noisy vs Quiet Zones: Placing spaces like bedrooms on opposite ends of a noisy garage. And orientating the bedrooms to the quiet garden instead of a noisy street.
• Multi residential: Gang up multiple mechanical together, placing bathrooms back to back for wet walls, and consolidating services into a common mechanical/service core.

Hotel

Hotels are primarily programmed to provide a restful place to sleep, combined with entertainment, dining, and meeting facilities. There are many secondary areas to a hotel, especially areas that have been programmed as secondary income, but the primary focus is a restful place to stay.

Hotel Room: Optimal width is about 12.5’ and 14-20 feet long depending on room type, guest comfort is to be maximized esp with bathroom and bedroom layout

2 Main Auxiliary Areas:

1. Public (enter, lobby, dine, socialize, breakout, etc)
   1. Each public piece should be planned with the guest convenience and comfort in mind.
2. Service (kitchen, admin offices, laundry, back of house, etc)
   1. Service areas should be laid out with control and efficiency in mind. It is here that supplies are delivered and food is stored/prepared, etc. 

• These 2 different areas should be separated, and if possible, the guests should not even know about the service areas or functions of the hotel. The contradictory part is that the service area is vital to the profitability of the hotel.
• Example: In higher end hotels you will find separate lifts for service while in lower end hotels, the services will utilize the same passenger hotel.

Rule of Thumb: Corridors about 6 feet wide should not exceed 100 feet in length.

Shopping Center Design

Shopping centers are a 20th century creation that offer a grouping of retail shops with a number of service, recreational, entertainment, and dining establishments, all accessible by automobile. Main objective is the creation of a convenient and attractive project, which offers maximum merchandising potential for tenant stores, as well as convenient access to the shopping centers by different pedestrian and vehicular access. A great shopping center should be accessible not only by car, but also by bus, train, and any other available means.

Rule of Thumb: Typical street strip mall is a maximum of 800 feet long. Storefronts vary from 20 to 30 feet wide, and are 120 to 140 feet deep.

• Clear ceiling heights are 12’-0” minimum.

Access By Car

In America, a shopping center MUST have convenient access by car, 

• A ratio of 5 to 6 car spaces per 1,000 square feet of retail store area is mandatory
• This means for every square foot of retail area, there must be 2 or more sf of parking area. This creates what is conceived as a building surrounded by huge amounts of parking.
• The parking must be well layout as bad vehicular movement will cause confusion, danger, noise, and diminish the shopping experience. Reference our parking guide for more information.

3 Main Types Of Shopping Centers

Neighborhood Center: Convenience goods, and personal services. Often built around a drugstore. Larger neighborhood centers will include a supermarket.

Community Center: In addition to the Neighborhood Center, it provides for the sale of soft goods (clothes), hard goods (hardware). Typically includes a supermarket as well.

Regional Center: Built around one or more major department stores and provides general merchandise, furniture, and home furnishings in addition to the Neighborhood and Community Center offerings.

School

Many schools are different and the programmatic elements of a school will reflect the school’s aspirations. Therefore, to be able to fulfill the requirements of a school, the Architect must be familiar with the teaching methods likely to be employed in the classrooms. The programming objective for a school is to describe the physical spaces required, the uses of these spaces, their functional relationships, and the number of students and equipment needs for each space, as well as educational environment/pedagogy. 

Capacity & Size

Classroom capacity must be established.

• Classroom sizes typically vary between 800 and 1000 square feet.
• Approximately 20 persons in kindergarten classes
• Approximately 30 persons in a high school class (academic) and 40 persons in a physical education class.

Each different classroom requires different stipulations. Academic classrooms may require quiet locations while science labs require laboratory space.

All educational facilities should be planned to be flexible as class sizes and teaching methods will vary every single year and evolve over time.

• An example of this would be the furniture should be able to be arranged in many different layouts depending on lesson type. This also allows the teacher to vary their lesson without concern for physical constraints.

Safety

Life safety has also become a very big influence in the design of a school. This includes the ability to ‘lock down’ a classroom and also get all students out of the building as quickly as possible in the event of an emergency.

Church & Religious

Church plans are determined by the form of the various rituals which they accommodate. This form will vary considerably between faiths, and within them as well. Spaces must frequently be able to support and accommodate different activities (school, assembly, etc).

Most religious activities require visual and aural (hearing) contact between those who lead the service and the congregation, and also that different religions have different practices which require different architectural expressions.

With each religious space, extensive research is needed in the background of the theory in order to understand the spatial requirements of the belief.

Theaters

Optimum house depth equals four to five times the stage width.

• When the house is 3 times the stage width or less, maximum house depth is based upon visibility of 75 feet.

Vertical Angle Limits a maximum viewing angle of 30 degrees

Hospitals

Healing buildings are incredibly complex and require many different specialties to design and incorporate all the equipment. Patient health and comfort should be prioritized and the mechanical planned around those areas. The mechanical, electrical, and all other servicing should be designed in conjunction with the recovery, health, and safety of the patients in mind.

• Example: In an infectious disease ward, the rooms need to be pressurized properly so the air from the room does not escape into the hallway. This means a higher pressure in the hallway.

Library

There are many forms of libraries, and in particular, this building type has undergone lots of changes in recent paths. Now it is common for public libraries to provide public wifi, accessible design, innovative and collaboration space for new technologies, computers, along with print books.