The first week’s practice task was the 2018 exam problem, Bus Passenger Hub Scheme Design. I had already worked it out on paper and compared my answer with the reference solutions from different institutions. The gap was still obvious. I could say I had only really absorbed a few key points, while many weak spots remained. So I decided to go through the thinking process again in a digital draft and keep a record of it here.
Reading the brief
The first thing, as always, is the design task itself: a two-story passenger terminal building with a total area of 6,200 square meters, connected to both a light rail station and a parking garage. Because there are related buildings involved, the site plan has to be checked carefully.
The site plan does not contain much information. Besides the building control line, the main elements are the roads, the light rail station, the parking garage, the commercial area to the north, and the residential area to the south. The last two are only described in text and not shown as full building masses, which suggests they do not have a major impact on the design task.
The second step is to read the drawing requirements. They are divided into two parts: the site plan and the floor plans. While reading, it helps to mark the requirements on the paper and cross them off one by one during drawing so nothing gets missed.
For the site plan, we need to draw the plaza, roads, parking area, and landscaping, and label the number of motor vehicle entrances and exits, the number of parking spaces, and the areas of the pedestrian plaza and the non-motorized parking area. We also need to draw the roof plan of the building and label the number of stories and the relative elevation; the entrances and exits of the building must also be marked.
The key point is that the roof plan, not the first-floor plan, must be drawn, so the elevation cannot be labeled incorrectly. In my view, this kind of unusual requirement is exactly the kind of thing that costs points. In a recent exam, for example, the requirement to draw the visitor flow and label elevations was one of those critical details: the more specific the requirement, the more important it is. By contrast, in the 2022 Data Science Application Center problem, there was also a requirement to draw an observation corridor, but no elevation was required, which means the corridor only had to be laid out correctly; there was no need to overthink the ramp length or the landing positions.
For the floor plans, the first and second floors must be drawn, showing columns, walls (either double lines or single bold lines), doors with opening direction, and windows. Sanitary fixtures may be omitted. Axis dimensions, overall dimensions, and the relative elevations of indoor floors, indoor ground, and outdoor ground must be labeled. Room and space names must be marked, and the areas of rooms and spaces with an asterisk in the table must be labeled, with an allowable error of ±10%. The total building area of each floor must be filled in, with an allowable error of ±5% of the prescribed area. Room areas and floor areas are all calculated from the axis lines.
From last year’s practice, I found that single bold lines are clearly more efficient. Some classmates think double lines look better and may leave a stronger impression on the teacher, but I do not really agree. From the grader’s point of view, the first thing they look at is whether the drawing is complete, then whether the zoning is correct, whether the flow is reasonable, and then the room layout. Unless you have had a long period of training, a single bold line is easier to handle and often produces a cleaner drawing. For a floor plan, you only need to complete what is required. Do not add extra elements that are not asked for, such as steps or ramps in this problem. Some people like to draw them like construction drawings, but it is unnecessary. Extra information only makes it harder for the grader to read the drawing. As long as the design requirements are satisfied, the cleaner the drawing, the better.
As for area labels, just use the numbers given in the problem. If time allows, you can also label them as built, but keep the error within the allowed range. Do not leave yourself an obvious weakness. If something could have been left out without penalty, there is no point in writing a clearly wrong number and handing the grader a reason to deduct marks.
Working through the problem
The information in the reading stage can be skimmed more quickly, but the problem-solving stage needs to be read carefully. This is the core of the task. If you do not think it through, you may miss the hidden logic behind the question. You also have to connect the clues across the whole problem. The exam writer breaks the complete information into pieces and scatters them everywhere: some in the written text, some in the bubble diagram, some in the area table, some in the legend, and some are hidden entirely, forcing you to infer them yourself. In some cases, the information even points to more than one possible answer, so you have to be bold enough to try.
The first step in solving is to look at the site plan, which was already done in the previous section. Once the overall site has been understood, the rest of the reading becomes much easier. The site conditions are the written part of the general plan, where what is immediately visible is described in words. Some things are not directly prompted, which is why the statement “refer to the general site plan for conditions and surroundings” appears there: some information has to be extracted by the candidate.
For example, there is a sample entrance on the east side of the parking garage. That means the entrance on our site plan should also be drawn in the same way. To achieve that, the entrance position of the existing road line needs to be erased with a blade. On the east side of the building control line, next to the parking garage, there is a connection corridor labeled 9 m wide. That means this corridor is important, and the proposed building must have a matching corridor. Its width is very likely also 9 m. All of these are useful clues, but whether they can be applied directly to the design is still something to be judged. What matters is that they have to be extracted during reading. If the site plan gives information, it is there for a reason. The examiner will not include useless details. The residential and commercial areas are only labeled as text, and even the east side of the parking garage is left without further annotation.
Site planning requirements
The site plan requirements are a more detailed version of the general plan. They limit the range of each element and help clarify the building’s functional zoning. The problem asks for reasonable organization of pedestrian and vehicular movement, with flows not interfering with one another, and for convenience in transfer and gathering. It does not explicitly require strict separation between people and vehicles, which means the flows are allowed to cross. For example, the plaza can serve as a fire lane when needed, and pedestrians may also pass through the vehicle lane as long as a walkway is marked, just like the site diagram shows.
The southern part of the site is for the large bus operating parking area, with one entrance and one exit. It must include one arrival bay, three departure bays, and a platform connected to the station building. There must also be eight overnight parking spaces and one washing bay. The northern part is for the small car parking area, also with one entrance and one exit. It must provide 40 parking spaces, including two accessible spaces, as well as a passenger drop-off platform. The western part of the site is a pedestrian plaza of about 2,500 square meters, including a non-motorized parking area of no less than 300 square meters. Inside the site, there must be one dedicated small car parking area for internal use, with six small car spaces and one small truck space for the fast food restaurant, and it should be accessible through the northern small car entrance. The passenger terminal is connected on the east and west sides by second-floor corridors to the light rail station and the parking garage. The station building must be placed within the building control line, and canopies and steps are allowed to protrude beyond that line.
The site requirements are fairly straightforward. The south, north, and west sides all clearly state what needs to be drawn. The internal parking area is not given a fixed location, so it has to be decided by the candidate. The information already given on the site can be used to infer the building’s functional zoning, and conversely, the building layout can make uncertain site details more definite. So the best approach is to sketch the site plan first and simply place the already confirmed elements.
As for the bracketed note, I personally ignored it. The drawing requirements do not ask for canopies or steps, but the note still gives away one thing: the outer wall of the proposed building can sit right against the red line, otherwise the canopy would have no chance to extend beyond the control line. So if the axis grid size is still uncertain, the control line should be treated as the maximum extent. Any excess over the required building area can be absorbed into spaces such as an atrium.
Building design requirements
The functional layout is divided into four parts: the transfer area, waiting area, station service area, and departure area. Each part should remain relatively independent, with a clear flow.
Relatively independent means the zoning should be neat and regular, not broken into scattered pieces spread all over the place. A clear flow means the connections should be convenient, not a maze of corridors. Users should be able to move through the building easily. If the final scheme produces winding, awkward circulation, then the scheme has failed.
Transfer area
The transfer hall must contain two escalators, two passenger elevators that can also serve as accessible lifts, and one open staircase with a tread width of at least 3 m. This staircase is not to be used as a fire evacuation stair. On the west side of the first-floor transfer hall, there is one entrance facing the pedestrian plaza; on the north side, there are two entrances facing the small car parking area. The east and west ends of the second-floor transfer hall connect to the two corridor links. The fast food restaurant must have a separate back-of-house entrance, one freight elevator, and easy access to the internal small car parking area. The ticketing hall should remain relatively independent so that ticket buyers do not interfere with the circulation of the transfer hall.
When I first practiced this problem, I looked at the symbol for the escalator, which was 15 × 3 m, and then saw that the open stair had to be at least 3 m wide. My first instinct was that the two should be symmetrical. In the end, my own solution did exactly that. I placed the escalator and the open stair inside the transfer hall, one on each side, so that after entering through the lobby, people could split left and right and go straight up by escalator or stairs.
The reference answer, however, combined the two. The advantage is that they do not take up extra transfer hall space, and the whole zone can keep a 9 m-wide straight-through layout. If they are placed separately inside the hall, they take up 3 m of space, leaving only 6 m where the stair is. From the area table and the textual requirements, I think this still satisfies the problem. But from the user’s perspective, combining them feels better. In crowded conditions, a combined arrangement means the entrances and exits are fixed, whereas separating them leaves some distance between choices and makes the user hesitate.
The requirements for the transfer hall are clear: on the first floor there are three entrances and exits; on the second floor it connects to the east and west corridor links. This suggests a rectangular hall running east to west. If the 9 m width of the corridor link is used as the basic unit, 800/9\=88.89, and the area table also contains standard figures like 64, 32, and 960, it is reasonable to infer that the main grid is 8 m. That makes the transfer hall an 11-bay space, and 8X9X11\=792, which is close enough to 800. So this bay can be fixed directly: the northern side, connecting the east-west corridors, is the anchor space. The other rooms can be organized around it, including support functions such as the self-service bank in the transfer area.
From the site plan, there is also another bay north of the corridor connection. That means both the north-side parking lot and the west-side pedestrian plaza enter the transfer hall through a small vestibule. A vestibule is circulation space and does not count toward the building area itself, so the transfer hall area can be considered more flexibly. Because of that, even if the escalator and open stair are placed in the backmost bay, they still do not exceed the bounds of the transfer hall area. My first draft also considered a vestibule, but I limited the transfer hall to a simple rectangle. That was a lack of experience. To improve, you have to practice repeatedly, keep thinking about the problem, discover the flaws in your own work, and gradually make progress even without a master guiding you.
The fast food restaurant needs a separate entrance, one freight elevator, and convenient access to the internal small car parking area. Looking at the site zoning, the south and west sides are both unsuitable. If placed there, the circulation would become messy. That leaves only the north and east sides. The fast food restaurant, including the kitchen, has an area of 354 square meters. If the freight elevator and stairwell are counted too, it can occupy six full grid cells, so it is a fairly large zone. If it is placed on the north side, it cannot cross the transfer hall. My first version put it on the north side as a long strip, because my escalator was inside the 9 m bay of the transfer hall.
But if the escalator is moved to the north side, there will not be enough space left for the fast food restaurant, and the restaurant then has to shift toward the southeast. If the fast food restaurant is fixed in the southeast on the second floor, then the station service area cannot go there, and the only thing left for the lower level in that part is the departure area.
And that is exactly where the real difficulty of the scheme lies: once one key room is fixed, the rest of the floor plan starts to unfold around it, and every decision changes the next one.