Design
Domain 3 - Design. This is the graphic problem-solving section: you receive a program, a site, and a constraint set, and must place uses, circulation, and grading so everything works together within accessibility and code requirements.
Program and parti
- Convert the program into areas, counts, and adjacency needs before drawing; test two or three organizational options before committing.
- Build a circulation hierarchy - arrival, primary path, secondary paths, service - and give every route a destination.
- Work with the grain of the site: keep intensive uses off slopes above roughly 10%, protect significant trees and drainageways, and orient to sun and prevailing wind.
Fit and dimension
- Check that buildings, parking, and courts fit inside setbacks and dimensional standards at the scale you are drawing.
- Accessible routes must link arrival points, accessible parking, entrances, and amenities at no more than 5% running slope and 2% cross slope.
- Accessible parking counts scale with lot size, and at least one in every six accessible spaces must be van accessible with an access aisle.
- Verify clearances: canopy over walks, fire apparatus access width, and turning radii for service and delivery vehicles.
Grading as design
- Drainage organizes the plan; paved areas need a minimum 1–2% slope to a positive outlet, and a pedestrian route should never double as a drainage channel.
- On steep ground, use retaining walls, switchbacks, and boardwalks; ramps only where the rise cannot be designed out.
Worked example
A terrace sits 18 in above a parking lot 40 ft away. A code ramp at 1:12 would need 18 ft of run plus landings and would block sightlines. Instead, regrade the lot and set the terrace 1.5 ft above it, then run a sloped walk at 4.5%: 1.5 ÷ 0.045 = 33.3 ft of run, which fits the available distance. Because 4.5% is under 5%, the walk stays an accessible route and needs no ramp handrails or intermediate landings.
Traps
- Paving every connection until the plan becomes one undifferentiated plaza with no hierarchy or microclimate.
- Meeting the program on paper while leaving a 6% cross slope across the accessible route.
- Omitting service and maintenance access, which reviewers always count.
- Over-steepening swale side slopes past 4:1 so they cannot be maintained.