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Space Planning and Floor Plans

An excited third grader, working on his design of a military base!

For the past two weeks, we have been adapting our bubble diagrams into floor plans. This is not an easy task – it requires us to really look at the size of our spaces and their relationships to each other. 

We started by assigning dimensions, in feet, to each of our spaces, and writing them on the bubble diagrams. We are using the floor tiles again to visualize how big a space with be in real life. We look at the size on the floor and make a decision about the design. This is a great exercise for honing visual-spatial skills. 

Our hospital floor plan is coming together nicely!

Using graph paper, we then started drawing our floor plans, making sure to account for circulation, doors, and windows. Over the next two weeks, I will be cutting out the components for our models, and we will begin assembling our buildings in week 7! 

I am so proud of how far the kids have come! They are going to love seeing their city come together!

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Beginning Building Design

This week’s class was so exciting! We started designing buildings to put together our city. it’s looking like we will have a school, a hospital, a few stores and restaurants, an airport, a military base, and a couple of houses. 

  • One of our third graders designing a house
  • A fourth grade student designing a restaurant
  • One of our fifth graders discussing ideas

Using the planning technique of bubble diagrams, the kids started laying out their buildings based on the simple programs they chose. The programs list 5 – 6 spaces that are required, two adjacencies, and some exterior door and window requirements. 

Most of the kids added extra spaces to their designs. I love the creativity!

The bubble diagrams allow us to look at spaces in relationship to each other, both in terms of size and location. We can tell that our school cafeteria, for example, is larger than a classroom. The actual dimensions of the spaces are not yet figured out. 

A fifth grader drew a fantastic bubble diagram of a school

Next week we will begin to draw scaled floor plans of our designs. We may need to make some decisions about what extra spaces to eliminate in order to fit our buildings on their selected sites. 

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City Planning

This week, we started planning our city! When I asked the kids what types of buildings we should include, I expected the list to include houses, schools, stores, and offices; I did not expect airports, military bases, and water treatment plants! These kids continue to amaze me.

One of our fourth grade students working on a bubble diagram

Using the list we created, I showed the kids how to draw bubble diagrams. These are some of my favorite planning tools in the design process. Bubble diagrams are loosely drawn spaces or “bubbles” with lines connecting the spaces that should be directly adjacent to each other. Quick bubble diagram sketches are a great way to study space relationships quickly before starting to layout floor plans – or site plans in this case.

Two of our third grade boys working on a bubble diagram

Working in small groups, the students created some bubble diagrams of their ideal cities. I found it interesting that the girls put government buildings at the city center, and the boys chose a hospital as the hub. I let them pin up their drawings to present to the class.

Next week I will distribute programs for individual buildings and assign a site to each student. Just like professional architects, they will have to design their building to meet the program requirements and to fit within the site constraints.