I described the source and reason of the foot measurements in an earlier post. Basically the reason for that is so that my mind, which is trained in the logic of feet and inches from my childhood, can better envision the finished structure. I set the radius of the circle to 4" so that the wheel would yield imperial measurements, and this ensures that the relative sizes and locations of windows and doors will also be practical. The exclusion of the ruler applies when setting out the design so that I can be assured that geometry rules the day.
In the windows pictured above, the height of the bottom is a little over 4' (the cross beams mark the midpoint of the 8' walls) But they were set up to align with the top of the door more than anything else. However, the window placement on this drawing is not necessarily final placement, I may instead set them so that they sit atop the cross beams (I don't remember the term for these offhand, but it's something in German) Part of the consideration for window placement has to do with the sun. Together with the wide overhangs, I would like for the windows to accept direct sunlight during the winter when the Sun is at a low angle to the horizon, and accept indirect light in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky. That's part of the reason for the somewhat higher placement they have right now.
As far as making changes to fit requirements of real world applications, I deal with this partially simply by having the master radius for the circles set to a measurement of inches. This does yield mostly standard measurements, but it also yields a few irrational numbers as a result of circular geometry.
Why 14x24? Well, because it was set so that the first floor ceiling height would equal 8 feet, this distance is also equal on the diagram to the radius of the circle. The length of the building is equal to 3 radii, or 24 feet. The rectangle that the floor plan is set to is a special daisy wheel rectangle that has a proportional of 1:2 of the length of the short side and the length of the diagonal. Using the Pythagorean Theorem we can find out that the proportional length of the long side would therefore be equal to the square root of 3, which is an irrational number close to 1.732. On the diagram, we know the length only of the long side for certain, which is 24 feet. so 24 feet is equal to the square root of 3 times the length of the short side, so the short side's length (according to my scientific calculator) is an irrational number close to 13.8564, which I have been rounding up to 14 (it is very close to 13 7/8, which would be 13.875, which would be 13' 10 1/2") So that's why! By the way, can you guess I hated math in High school?
We find references here and there to medieval English buildings whose layouts reflect daisy wheel proportions, but also whose measurements match medieval standard units such as the rod. It would seem that the medieval carpenter set his compass to a known measurement. (That's actually where I got the idea) And that makes sense, by doing so you ensure that things are going to come out the size you want them. It also makes it a whole lot easier to figure out how much you need to scale things up from the drawings to make a full sized building. So I guess I wasn't quite right saying I used no ruled measurement, I used 1, and from it all other measurements are derived. So you could say all of my measurements are derived geometrically from 4" I wouldn't go any bigger than 4", and I think 3" or 4" are the best sizes to use, because they both can be used to find useful multiples of feet and fractions of feet. So My quest with a daisy wheel design is to produce a building that will fit with the system. The structure I am working on does that, I believe.
By the way, the reason I don't use a ruler once I've started the design is not because I am morally opposed to rulers or anything like that, it because by doing so I would not come up with something that would transfer as well into the real world, and also doing so would actually be harder than finding things by spinning the compass. Once you start with the system, it doesn't make much sense to try to superimpose some other system over it. For example, would it make sense to design a building starting off with feet and inches, and then at some point switch over to metric? If you start with the imperial system, you've got to stick with it for the whole project or things just won't match up right. It's the same thing, if you start with the daisy wheel then I think you need to stick with it or things just won't match up.
This line of reasoning, however, can run into some flexibility in the area of interior layout. If my building's overall measurements come out as feet, then I feel like it's OK to divide off rooms and such with feet. I will have to experiment some day to see how well you can accomplish that with the daisy wheel though, so far I have yet to see it used or try to use it for any complicated structure.
I plan on creating a conversion scale on my drawing, if nothing else than for kicks and giggles. The point of which would be to get an idea at the size of some of my proportions, and see just how many of my measurements actually come out to be feet and good inches. I suspect most of them will, but we shall see once
