Session 1 · SOLVE: See the Pattern
Walk the site
- 10 minHook: a photo of a raised bed that holds twice the soil someone ordered, and a sofa stuck in a doorway. What went wrong?
- 25 minSite walk in your chosen space: find north with a compass or phone, notice where the sun falls and where shade sits, which way water would run in heavy rain, where people walk, and what is already there.
- 15 minRecord three things you notice, one thing you wonder, and what you would need to measure. Choose your context and write the question your design must answer.
Session 2 · SOLVE: Organise Information
Units, benchmarks and body measures
- 10 minMetric prefixes: kilo (× 1000), centi (÷ 100), milli (÷ 1000). Build a conversion ladder from km to mm.
- 15 minBody benchmarks: measure your pace, hand span and arm span. A door is about 2 m tall; a litre of milk is 1 kg.
- 15 minEstimate five lengths in the room with your benchmarks, then measure them. Work out how far off you were.
- 10 minPace out the length and width of your site and record estimates. Tohu asks one question about how accurate pacing is.
Getting started
Use the ladder: to go from metres to centimetres, multiply by 100; from centimetres to metres, divide by 100.
Stretch
Work out your percentage error for each estimate. Which benchmark is most reliable?
Checkpoint
Each group has site notes (north, sun, water, use), a design question and paced estimates of the site's size.
Activities for this week
- Body benchmarks and pacing: How accurately can you measure with your own body?
Useful this week
- Maungakiekie ↗ How tūpuna Māori read and shaped a volcanic cone into terraces, pits and gardens.
- Metric length ↗ Millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres, with conversions.
- NZ Topo Map ↗ Free topographic maps of every part of Aotearoa, with contours and scale.