Having a degree in architecture can be expensive, even if you are only practicing as an architect. The cost of educating someone to become an architect is very high, which has made it difficult for many people with no formal education beyond their high school diploma to pursue this career path.

Architects must have at least one bachelor’s degree (usually in either art or design), so most entry level positions require that candidates have at least a Bachelor's Degree in something other than architecture. Employers want to see proof that you've got your math skills up to par, however, so it's important to know what kinds of things count as mathematics.

This article will go into detail about how much math architects actually need to succeed in the profession. There may also be some information about how much experience being an architectural assistant can net you towards becoming licensed.

Understanding how to use formulas to solve design problems

It is important to have basic math skills before moving onto more advanced concepts in architecture. This includes understanding fractions, proportions, and equations.

Formulas are one of the most fundamental pieces to solving architectural questions. You will be using them frequently throughout your career as an architect.

In this article we will discuss some easy ways to take your mathematical pre-requisites to the next level by practicing on online resources and games. We will also review some simple proportion calculations that you can do yourself.

Math plays an integral part in every aspect of life including architecture. By being familiar with it, you will find many applications for it.

Being able to calculate surface areas and volumes

The term ‘architect’ is usually associated with designing buildings, but that isn’t all there is to it! An architect must also have a solid understanding of mathematics, especially geometry. He or she would be doing their job if they were aware of how to measure angles, surfaces, and volume in three-dimensional space!

It is very common for architects to do mathematical calculations during the design process, most often concerning area and volume. They might find themselves needing to know whether an addition will increase the overall size of a building, or determine how many windows a wall needs to have to make a room feel larger.

Surface area is simply defined as the total amount of space an object occupies, while volume is the bigger of two objects’s internal dimensions. Since spaces such as rooms are made up of walls and ceilings, which take up some amount of the space, the sum of those two components makes up the full volume of the space.

Being able to calculate forces upon objects

The word force is quite common in architecture, but what does it mean? When you think about it, it’s really just math! A lot of math! It means using mathematics to determine how much pressure or push something exerts on other things.

For example, when you run down a steep hill, you feel a large amount of gravitational pull due to gravity. This is why cars work with engines- they use physics to create more out put energy from your muscle strength by running all those pistons up and down!

Similarly, when an object wants to stay away from another object, there is tension or stress caused between them. An easy way to understand this is thinking about ropes as long distances will always have some degree of stress in them.

This concept applies even to buildings! As a student architect, you are likely familiar with basic concepts like statics and dynamics. So, let's review!

Understatics occur when parts of a structure want to be closer together. For instance, if we were designing a house, then the roof would want to be lower because it wants to cover the floor.

Overstatics happen when different components desire to be farther apart. In our same house design, the ceiling would desire to be higher than the floor so that it can see the sky.

Dynamic conditions arise when part of a structure changes shape or position. A perfect example of this is someone walking across a room.

Knowing how to read architectural drawings

There are two main types of drawing that architects create, and they both require different levels of math knowledge. The first is called an elevation or profile view diagram. These diagrams show one side or depth of an object as your vertical axis and length along the horizontal plane.

A kitchen ladder is a example of an elevation diagram. In this case, the ladder becomes the vertical axis and the distance between each rung becomes the length of the box at the appropriate height. Then, the other part of the diagram comes from adding the heights together to get the total wall surface area.

This process is repeated for all walls in the room, so knowing basic geometry helps! Another important piece of information in an architecture office is which angle goes with what quadrant, which is usually either 90 degree corners (think squares) or 45 degree angles (thinking rectangles).

Knowing these basics makes it much easier to match up shapes and understand lines and dimensions.

Understanding basic construction math

The basics of architecture are pretty simple, but as with any field that requires mathematics, there is always some degree of confusion. This can be due to different schools having differing levels of complexity for teaching these concepts or because students do not quite understand what they are being taught.

This article will go over several fundamental concepts in architectural drawing and maths including interior dimensioning, exterior dimensioning, calculating area, determining volume, and converting units. By understanding how to do these things, you will know your software well!

Interior dimensions

Mostly learned through experience, interior dimensions refer to the length of an object as it extends into another space. For example, if you were designing a room, then its internal wall would be an interior dimension.

The rules about interior dimensions apply whether the objects going into the space are solid (like a table) or empty (the air around the room).

For instance, if you wanted to determine the size of the walls, you would subtract their thicknesses from both sides of the enclosed space. In this case, the enclosed space would be the room so each side of the wall would have a value of “room + thickness - thickness”.

Calculating area

Knowing how to calculate surface area is very important when it comes to architects.

Knowing how to read construction plans

The first thing most people assume when talking about architecture is that you must have math skills. After all, architects are usually called upon to do mathematics during design stages of projects such as determining height limits or figuring out where windows and doors can be situated.

However, this assumption is wrong! This perception comes from the fact that many architectural programs include an art major or fine arts degree program. These courses typically focus more on creative drawing and painting than mathematical formulas.

Furthermore, some large companies hire individuals with no formal education in architecture but who have strong artistic talent. These employees learn much of what they know by looking at lots of different buildings and studying their styles.

This article will talk about another area of math that architects need to know – reading building construction documents (or BCDs for short).
Making sense of BCDs takes time so don’t expect to take just one night to get familiar with them. But once you do, you’ll save tons of time in your career!

What is a BCD?

A BCD is any document containing information about a project, including its owner, scope, status, and date. It may also contain notes and comments specific to the author. Most importantly, it contains the actual drawings themselves and sometimes other supporting materials like cost estimates or sketches.

The term “BCD” originally referred only to blueprints.

Being able to calculate the load bearing capacity of structures

Even more important than being able to do basic algebra or geometry is understanding how to determine the strength or limit of a structure. This includes knowing how to assess the strength of an object due to its weight, as well as determining the stress that can be placed upon it during use.

It also means figuring out what types of loads a given structure can withstand and where there are potential failure points. All this applies not only to new projects but to re-designs as well!

Many times in architecture, someone will ask you something like “How much pressure could the ceiling handle before it would collapse?” You need to know the answer to this so you can design around it!

There are many ways to figure this out, and they all depend on your knowledge base of math. But for now, we will focus on one way to evaluate the ultimate load limits of a surface.

Knowing how to read engineering specifications

As we've discussed, being able to read architectural drawings is an important tool for architects. But what kind of reading you should be doing depends on your career level.

If you are just starting out in architecture or have little experience drawing, then it's good to start with basic drawing instructions and definitions. Then move onto more complex drawings, such as floor plans or elevation diagrams.

You will also want to learn about some common terms used in drafting (such as measuring lines and angles). These includeconic sections, tangents, radii, and perpendiculars.

It is very helpful to know the difference between parallel and intersecting lines, as well as ratio calculations.