The Pontifical and Royal

UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS

Espana, Manila

COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE

50 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS IN THE THESIS DEFENSE

ARCH. JVMANALAD

1. What is the title of your thesis?

2. What do you mean by such title?
3. Is there really a need for this kind of project?
4. What is the main goal of your project? Research Objectives?
5. What then is your Design goal? Design Objectives?
6. Who are the direct beneficiaries of this project?
7. What is your Design Philosophy?
8. Explain to us your Design Concept for this project and how can you relate it to your Philosophy.
9. What are the specific Design Considerations that you have taken into account?
10. Where is your site located?
11. What were the criteria for the site selection process?
12. What were the other sites considered for this project?
13. How can you prove to us that the site chosen is the best site for this project?
14. How big is this site in square meters? Hectares?
15. What is the Land Use and Zoning category of your chosen site?
16. Does your project fit under the prescribed Land User and Zoning?
17. Can you briefly describe to us the environmental conditions in your site?
18. How did the orientation and wind direction influence your site development approach?
19. In terms of percentage, how much of the land are you utilizing? Why?
20. Did you cut full-grown trees in your site just to give way for this project? Why? Why not?
21. How many times have you visited and made actual observations in your site?
22. Do you think those site visits were sufficient enough?
23. What relevant laws did you study for this project?
24. What specific provisions in the National Building Code and 1185 Fire Code did you apply in
your design?
25. How many parking slots did you provide? Why such number?
26. Explain to us the theories and principles behind your building elevations.
27. How tall is your building? Is there a building height restriction in the area that you have chosen?
28. Explain to us the exterior finishes that you used for your building.
29. Discuss to us the interior finishes that you used for your major spaces.
30. Is your building passively or actively cooled?
31. If it is actively cooled, what kind of air conditioning system did you employ?
32. How big is your air-handling unit? Why such size?
33. What is your reference for computing the AHU area?
34. How many passenger elevators did you provide? Why such number?
35. How many escalators did you provide? Why such number?
36. Did you consider acoustical treatments in some of your areas? Why and why not?
37. Did you provide backup power supply system in your project? How?
38. What fire-fighting system and device/s did you provide for this project?
39. What is the main water supply source in the site?
40. What kind of water feeding system did you use? Why? Is the water pressure enough?
41. Is your project government or privately owned? Why did you say so?
42. Who finances your project and at how much?
43. What structural system did you use for this project? Why?
44. What is the widest column-to-column span of your structure? Is it safe from sagging?
45. How deep is your foundation footing from the natural ground line? Why?
46. What is the soil type or category of your site? Can you describe its characteristics?
47. What is your design focus? Pls. explain how would your design focus help achieve the design
objective/s of your project?
48. Overall, has your solution achieved its design objectives?
49. Has your project met the goal of the thesis?
50. May we have your final words before we give you our final verdict?