Course 1 Level 1 Core Practitioner

Site, Climate & Land Assessment

Read a piece of land — climate, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, solar access — and document it in a form a design team can build from. Includes New Mexico water rights and acequia obligations.

What you'll be able to do

Run a full six-domain site assessment and record it usably
Establish whether a site has the water rights to support what is proposed
Identify acequia easements and the obligations that come with them
Place a building from what the land tells you rather than from the plat

Syllabus

6 parts · 19 lessons · 159 quiz questions · ≈5.4 hours of reading · sign in to open lessons

Part A CLIMATE 4 lessons · 54 min

1 Climate, Weather and Microclimate 11 min · 6 q
2 Temperature and Degree Days 12 min · 6 q
3 Precipitation, Solar Radiation and Wind 18 min · 9 q
4 Building the Climate Picture 13 min · 7 q

Part B THE PHYSICAL SITE 4 lessons · 61 min

5 Topographic Analysis 16 min · 8 q
6 Hydrological Analysis 15 min · 8 q
7 Soil Analysis 15 min · 7 q
8 Vegetation and Ecological Survey 15 min · 8 q

Part C WATER RIGHTS AND ACEQUIAS 4 lessons · 70 min

9 Prior Appropriation — the System You Are In 15 min · 8 q
10 Domestic Wells and Rainwater Harvesting 18 min · 9 q
11 Acequias — What They Are 19 min · 10 q
12 Acequias — Working With Them 18 min · 9 q

Part D SOLAR ACCESS AND SITE LAYOUT 3 lessons · 53 min

13 The Solar Access Survey 18 min · 9 q
14 Types of Site and Site Selection Factors 18 min · 9 q
15 Stormwater and Site Drainage 17 min · 9 q

Part E EARTHWORKS 3 lessons · 53 min

16 Slow, Spread, Sink 15 min · 8 q
17 Swales 18 min · 9 q
18 Berms, Mounds and Ponds 20 min · 10 q

Part F DOCUMENTATION 1 lesson · 20 min

19 Documenting the Site 20 min · 10 q

Ref Appendices 4 references

A1 Field Test Methods
A2 Climate Data Sources
A3 Water Rights Checklist — New Mexico
A4 Site Analysis Checklist

Prerequisites

None — this is the first course in the Level 1 sequence

About this course

Course competency

On completing this course you can read a piece of land — its climate, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation and solar access — document what you find in a form a design team can use, establish whether the site has the water rights to support what is proposed, identify acequia easements and obligations, and place a building and its earthworks so they work with the land rather than against it.

Why this course is first

Every decision in every other course in this curriculum depends on a piece of land.

Course 5 orients a building to the sun — but only if the site has winter solar access. Course 8 catches and stores water — but only if the rainfall is there and the law permits it. Course 4 builds walls out of site soil — but only if the soil has clay in it. Course 3's tire wall is its own foundation — but only on undisturbed, organic-free ground that drains.

A site is not a blank canvas. It is a complex, living system with its own history, its own flows, its own strengths and constraints.

The land has been shaped by geology and climate over millions of years. Vegetation, water, soil and wind have found their equilibria. Human activity has modified or disrupted those equilibria in ways that are often invisible until they reveal themselves in a flooded foundation, a failed crop, or an energy system performing far below design expectations.

The purpose of site analysis is to understand a piece of land thoroughly enough to design with it rather than against it.

Site analysis is not a luxury or an academic exercise. It is the most cost-effective investment in a building project — and almost the only one that cannot be made later.

What this course does not do

It does not give you a scorecard.

Pangea has no fixed go/no-go criteria — no minimum acreage, no maximum slope, no disqualifying list. Every site is judged on its own terms, and factors trade against each other differently on every project. A site with poor soil but excellent water may be better than the reverse. A steep site with perfect solar access may beat a flat one in shadow.

So this course teaches you the factors and how to read them. It does not pretend there is an arithmetic that decides. The judgement is the skill, and it is built by looking at many sites carefully.

Course structure

Part	Lessons	Subject
A	1–4	Climate: what to gather and what each figure decides
B	5–8	The physical site: topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation
C	9–12	Water rights and acequias — the legal gate
D	13–15	Solar access and site layout
E	16–18	Earthworks: slow, spread, sink
F	19	Documenting the site
—	A1–A4	Appendices: field tests, climate sources, water rights checklist, site analysis checklist

The public page for this course has the same syllabus without your progress on it - that is the one to send to somebody else.