Geometry at Work

What role does geometrical knowledge play in solving spatial problems in both vocational training and the workplace? Two activities are fundamental to the solution of spatial problems: measurement and the graphic representation of objects in spae Our ‘didactical engineering’ attempts both to introduce technical drawings as a geometrical model (in relation with orthographic projection), and to simulate some of the practicalities of reading plans on the building-site: the conditions necessary for this to happen are created by certain parameters of a basic reading situation. The teaching scenario, set up here, facilitates the transfer to students of part of the responsibility for using sophisticated geometrical knowledge in order to develop techniques for marking out.