Creating a to-scale floor-plan of their houses provides students with an introductory project-based activity that requires them to use dimensional conversions. Students can use tape measures to find the measurements of the rooms and the major furniture in their houses. They can then, using ratios, practice their conversion skills by creating a floor plan of their homes on graph paper, complete with scale cut-outs of the furniture, which can then be creatively rearranged. Enrich the project further by transferring the information into a simple computerized drawing program.
Students can also start a house design from scratch. Comparisons of the cost of building supplies can be made by charting the costs on a graph. For example, what would the total cost be with ten, twelve, fourteen or sixteen windows in the house? They can create charts that show the difference in the cost of wood versus that of bricks. Students can also take realty listings and compare prices to a variety of variables, such as number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the total square footage.
Students can measure volume by counting unit cubes when they design a water tower to hold a certain quantity of water. Students can explore and compare the different height, width, and depth configurations of water towers, and even use the weight of water to calculate which ones will provide the best gravity feed. The volume of air within a commercial or residential building could also be measured, since architectural design must include the creation of heating and cooling systems for the building.
Most students are natural builders. The University of Colorado takes advantage of this natural desire and uses it to give students hands-on experience. After designing a simple building, such as a storage shed or greenhouse, students take to the parking lot to construct their creation. This allows them to see how their measurements relate to the real world. This project could be built as a scale model using poster board or polystyrene panels. "Architecture Week," an online magazine, provides architectural drawings for famous buildings around the world, and these can be recreated on a smaller scale.