Schematic Design: NCARB Building Layout

Update: See the following link for review comments: http://www.areforum.org/forums/showthread.php?301617-BL-first-timer-please-comment-thanks!

First pass at building layout practice exam. NCARB original program.
took 5 hours total to complete. I will be working on this one. Scheduled to take this March 7th, 1.5 weeks from now.
FIRST FLOOR

 SECOND FLOOR

Schematic Design - Interior Layout (NCARB)

2/23/13

First pass at Interior Layout. This is program and layout that comes with the NCARB practice software.

Program and code review, notes and parti went quickly. Completed all room layouts except Reception in 52 minutes. Reception took an additional 42 minutes. 

PPP Site Zoning Vignette

First take on the NCARB practice vignette.

SPD - Sun Chart

ref: http://www.new-learn.info/packages/clear/thermal/climate/sun/sunpath_diagrams.html

Earth rotates about on a fixed plane that is tilted 23.5°

Averaged, the Earth will complete one rotation every 24hrs (based on a solar day) and thus moves at a rate of 15° per hour (one full rotation is 360°).

For northern hemisphere, the shortest solar day occurs around December 21 (winter solstice) and the longest solar day occurs around June 21 (summer solstice).

 time the earth takes to move around the sun is approximately 365 days. This path that the earth takes to revolve around the sun is called the elliptical path.

The angle between the earth- sun line and the earth"s equatorial plane is known as the angle of declination.

Searched for "sun path diagrams" and came up with this great site:
http://wiki.naturalfrequency.com/wiki/Solar_Position

Look in the back of the MEEB book (Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings)

ARE Exam Study Links

http://www.dustingoffron.com/ARE/

This is a page I found on the ARE Forum that I thought is worth sharing. It contains links to information and study material relating to each exam. It looks to be very useful and comes highly recommended from other forum users. Enjoy!

Site Planning Exam Scheduled

I finally set a date for this exam. I submitted time off from my job to take the exam on December 4, so now I have to get moving.

Site Planning Book Update

I am about halfway through the book, Site Planning 3rd Ed by Lynch and Hack. I have only documented a summary on Chpt 1 though. I have been reading it off and on for two years now. I am going to continue reading more often now that I have set my Site Planning Exam date for one Month from now. I look forward to posting more summaries as this is how I seem to best retain information.

ARE Exam Practice Software

The practice software does not install on an x64 operation system (Windows 7).
This post I found is the clearest instruction on how to handle that:
http://blog.arefaq.com/?p=137

New Exam Timeline

Just realized I only have one year to complete four exams until the 5 year rolling clock takes away my first one I took in May of 2008. 

Tentative exam order:

Site Planning and Design

Schematic Design

Programming Planning and Practice

Structural Systems

Started study for SPD yesterday. Downloaded the NCARB study guide and started reading the book I was partway through already, "Site Planning" 3rd Ed. by Kevin Lynch and Gary Hack. I will be posting notes from this book eventually.

Take Two Exams In Same Week

Here is a screenshot of the ARE 4.0 guideline page showing exam times.

I'm thinking about taking SPD (Site Planning and Design) and PPP (Programming, Planning & Practice) in the same week. Each test is too long to take in the same day I believe. It Might have to be an overnighter. I am in San Luis Obispo, CA. The nearest Prometric test center is in Camarillo just outside of Oxnard. It's a 2.5 hour drive for me one way. We'll have to see how that works out. I'm used to it being 4 blocks away when I lived in SF.

Site Planning Book

I finally received and started reading this book, Site Planning 3rd Ed., by Kevin Lynch. It is recommended as a great introduction to site planning as well as one of the main source materials for the ARE Site Planning and Design exam. I will attempt to post brief highlights as I read through.

Site Planning Progress

I have done some light reading from some of the Kaplan literature. Most people you talk to will tell you this is not where to go to study this material (AREforum.org).

I have tracked down a few of the books in the local libraries which are source material for the exam questions. I will be going to hopefully pick a few up soon. Wish me luck!