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Calculating Slopes - Architecture Registration Exam A.R.E. Webinar Site Planning & Design Exam

3,443 views · Published 30 March 2015 · 4:05 · Indexed 5 October 2026

Channel: Black Spectacles · 2015 · Education

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Then, to just make the point, there's a few obvious things about this. If you do that same idea on this particular example and we bring those lines across in our set contour, very quickly you realize that the spacing of the contours is actually quite telling that the closer they are together. So the tight ones, that's showing the steep space. The ones that are further apart from each other, that's talking about the lower slope. So this is very fast. It's in 2D. You can actually understand the three dimensional space really shockingly well. It's amazing how fast you can understand 3D in 2D, from using this simple system.
One other quick thing to say about it. The contours are just a useful way of understanding the lay of the land. They are not meaningful other than that. There is nothing sacred when you see a contour line. It doesn't exist in the world. It's a made up concept. It's an abstract idea. You'll find people often start lining up sidewalks with contours or putting the building against the contour line because it just seems like it's a line and should be meaningful. It's meaningful in terms of the lay of the land, in terms of the shape of the land. But it's not meaningful for any other reason. You imagine that, let's say, due to global warming, the average high water mark changed by four inches, and so we recalculated all the contours. Everything would shift four inches. It would still be meaningful to the lay of the land, but all the contours would be different. So it's an abstract way of thinking about these things. 
So when you're thinking about this and you're trying to figure out how far apart should these things be in terms of those numbers that I was just talking about, while you're working on the program, you can use circles. Let's say we're trying to make sure that something is not steeper than 20% slope. So then, if I use a circle that represents 20 over 100, which would be one over five, I use a five foot circle. That five foot circle would give me a sense that these things are either too close or too far apart. I can tell very quickly and easily, and I can move circles and make circles very simply and easily. That's one of the things you'll often use on this as a ratio, as a measuring tool. 
All right. So that's pretty fast, but I think it gives you a sense of what's expected of you. As I said, it's really about controlling how the water moves across the site without trying to dramatically change the overall pattern of how the water moves. If the water is moving from left to right and there's something in the middle that you're trying to protect, you're not going to be able to get the water to move from right to left. It's too hard. You're going against nature. It's not reasonable. So you're always working with the issue at hand, working with the way the water is trying to flow on the site, and just trying to get it to not do the damaging things and go around. Don't be worried about being dramatic. Those pointy swales are okay. The biggest worry you have to have is that there are limitations on what the slopes can be, and you can't let the contours get too close to each other or too far apart from each other. Then you would be with the wrong slope, like we said.

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