Free PRC ALE Exam Flashcards

It mirrors the PRBoA-linked Table of Specifications: 15 cards for History/Theory/Planning/Practice, 15 for Utilities/Structural/Materials, and 20 for Architectural Design and Site Planning. That is the published 30%/30%/40% distribution scaled to 50 cards.

The Professional Regulatory Board of Architecture administers the licensure examination under the Professional Regulation Commission. RA 9266 is the governing architecture law for this Philippine licensure pathway.

It helps an architect relate buildings and styles to their culture, technology, climate, materials, economy, and social setting. The useful task is comparison and application, not memorising a style name in isolation.

Study it as architecture shaped by local culture, climate, materials, traditions, and changing social conditions. A sound analysis explains how those forces influence form, space, construction, and later Philippine design.

Elements are the basic visual and spatial components, such as line, plane, volume, texture, light, and colour. Principles are ways of organising them, including balance, rhythm, hierarchy, proportion, unity, and contrast.

Proportion concerns the relationship among parts of a composition. Scale compares a building or element with a known reference, often the human body or its context. A room can have good internal proportion but feel out of scale for its users.

Climate affects comfort, orientation, shading, ventilation, rainfall protection, material performance, and energy demand. Climate-responsive design turns site conditions into decisions about building form, envelope, and outdoor space.

It is a design strategy that responds to heat, humidity, rain, and sun through measures such as shading, controlled daylight, cross-ventilation, protected openings, drainage, and durable materials. Choose measures that fit the specific site and building use.

Planning principles organise land, movement, services, open space, and development over time. They help balance ecological, social, functional, aesthetic, and economic considerations rather than treating a site as an isolated object.

Site planning considers topography, water, solar exposure, wind, access, circulation, vegetation, neighbouring uses, utilities, hazards, and development controls. These conditions guide where and how a project should be placed.

Architectural practice applies professional knowledge to organise and deliver architectural services. It includes managing scope, coordination, documents, consultants, client communication, cost awareness, and applicable laws and standards.

Project phases structure decisions from early information gathering through design, documentation, procurement, construction, and closeout. Each phase produces information that supports the next, reducing the risk of uncoordinated changes later.

Specifications state requirements for materials, products, workmanship, procedures, and quality. They complement drawings: drawings show location and relationship, while specifications define performance and execution requirements.

Professional judgment must protect public health, safety, and welfare. Ethical practice also requires competence, truthful communication, respect for lawful obligations, and responsible handling of conflicts and professional relationships.

A candidate must obtain a 70% weighted general average with no grade below 50% in any subject. This is the statutory licensure threshold; candidates must still meet current PRC application requirements.

The published Table of Specifications allocates 150 questions to utilities, structural conceptualization, and building materials and technology. It focuses on architectural coordination, interpretation, selection, and basic problem-solving rather than replacing specialist engineering design.

It is the early selection and integration of a plausible load-resisting system with the architectural design. The architect considers spans, supports, loads, materials, constructability, building use, and the implications of structural choices for space and form.

Dead loads are the permanent weight of the building and fixed components. Live loads vary with occupancy and use, such as people, movable furniture, or stored items. Both affect structural planning and must be coordinated with the structural engineer.

A foundation transfers building loads safely to the ground while controlling settlement and supporting the structural system. Its type responds to soil conditions, loads, water conditions, adjacent structures, and construction constraints.

A beam primarily carries loads across a span through bending and transfers them to supports. A column primarily carries compressive load vertically down to the foundation. Their size and location affect both structure and usable space.

A truss uses connected straight members, often arranged as triangles, to span efficiently. It can cover larger distances with less material than a solid beam, but it needs adequate depth, connections, support locations, and service coordination.

Concrete performs well in compression, while reinforcing steel supplies tensile capacity. Their combined action allows members such as slabs, beams, columns, and walls to resist varied loads when detailed and constructed correctly.

Consider span and member depth, connections, fire protection, corrosion protection, fabrication and erection access, interfaces with the envelope, and coordination with other systems. Material selection is a design and construction decision, not an isolated specification choice.

It brings potable or service water from a source through storage, distribution, and fixtures at adequate pressure and capacity. Architectural planning must reserve routes, shafts, equipment spaces, access, and coordination clearances.

A trap retains water to create a seal that helps block sewer gases from entering occupied spaces through a fixture drain. Its effectiveness depends on correct installation and maintaining the water seal.

They depend on gravity, slopes, fixture locations, venting, access for maintenance, site discharge conditions, and coordination with structure. Early planning prevents costly conflicts with beams, foundations, and finished spaces.

Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning affect comfort, indoor-air quality, energy use, noise, shafts, ceiling space, equipment rooms, and facade design. Good planning combines passive measures with space for the selected mechanical system.

It includes integrating detection, alarm, suppression, water supply, equipment access, compartmentation, and egress considerations with the building layout and relevant fire-safety requirements. Systems must work together rather than as separate add-ons.

Illuminance is the amount of light falling on a surface. Lighting design also considers task needs, distribution, glare, contrast, colour quality, controls, daylight, energy use, maintenance, and the architectural character of the space.

Acoustic control manages sound transmission and room sound quality through planning, form, mass, isolation, absorption, sealing, and appropriate finishes. A solution must address the particular problem: noise entering a space, noise leaving it, or poor sound within it.

The published Table of Specifications allocates 200 questions to compliance, site development planning, space planning, architectural design, structural conceptualization, and architectural interiors. It calls for applying requirements and translating design problems graphically or computationally as needed.

Development controls are legal or regulatory limits that shape what may be built on a site, such as permitted use, setbacks, height, site occupancy, floor area, access, and safety requirements. Check them before treating a design option as feasible.

BP 344 is the Philippine accessibility law. It requires accessibility features in covered buildings and facilities. Design should integrate accessible routes and usable spaces from the start, then verify current implementing rules and project-specific requirements.

Site analysis turns physical, environmental, regulatory, and social information into design inputs. It identifies opportunities and constraints involving landform, drainage, sun, wind, views, vegetation, access, utilities, neighbours, and hazards.

Orientation affects solar heat gain, glare, daylight, prevailing wind, views, and outdoor comfort. It is an early massing decision that can reduce cooling demand and improve natural-light and ventilation opportunities.

Shading limits unwanted solar gain before it enters the envelope. Cross-ventilation uses appropriately placed openings and pressure differences to move air through a space. Their effectiveness depends on orientation, openings, obstructions, and the local climate.

Positive drainage directs surface water away from buildings and toward appropriate collection or discharge points. It protects foundations, circulation areas, finishes, and site usability; grading must be coordinated with existing levels and drainage systems.

A bubble diagram explores early space relationships, relative size, and adjacency without committing to exact dimensions or form. It is useful for testing functional organisation before a plan becomes fixed.

An adjacency matrix records how strongly spaces need to be near, separated, or directly connected. It helps turn a programme into a rational layout while revealing conflicts between privacy, service access, noise, and workflow.

Successful circulation gives users a clear, safe, efficient route through and around a building. It considers sequence, orientation, width, accessibility, egress, separation of conflicting flows, and the relationship between public and service areas.

Anthropometrics supplies body dimensions and reach data; ergonomics applies human capability and comfort to tasks and environments. Together they inform space, furniture, access, work surfaces, circulation, and inclusive use.

A means of egress is the continuous and unobstructed path for occupants to travel from any point in a building to a safe public way or protected discharge. It is planned as a life-safety system, not merely a corridor or exit door.

A parti is the central organising idea of an architectural design. It can express a relationship, circulation strategy, response to site, formal concept, or spatial order that helps the many decisions of a project remain coherent.

A plan is a horizontal cut viewed from above; a section is a vertical cut revealing interior relationships; an elevation is an orthographic view of a facade. Together they communicate location, height, form, and construction relationships.

Drawing scale states the relationship between the drawing and the real building. It determines how much information can be shown clearly: a small scale communicates overall arrangement, while a large scale communicates components, joints, and construction detail.

Constructability is the degree to which a design can be built efficiently, safely, and reliably with available materials, methods, labour, access, sequencing, and tolerances. Consider it throughout design, not only after documents are finished.

Sustainable design reduces adverse environmental impact while supporting health, resilience, and long-term value. It considers site, energy, water, materials, indoor quality, durability, adaptability, and the building's whole life cycle.

It means converting written requirements, site data, rules, and user needs into an organised graphical or numerical representation—such as a diagram, sketch, relationship chart, area calculation, or plan option—before choosing a solution.

Accessibility addresses required usable features for people with disabilities. Universal design aims more broadly to make environments usable by the widest range of people, ages, and abilities with dignity and without unnecessary special adaptation.

A feasible design must align site controls, accessibility, fire and life safety, structure, utilities, materials, and drawings. Coordination detects conflicts early and produces a solution that is both architecturally coherent and capable of lawful implementation.