Layout

How much of the building project was designed prior to its realization is not precisely known, although the complex spatial programs of the church and convento, compounded by the particularities of each site, suggest that considerable deliberation preceded construction. Possibly the friar used a charcoal stick or ink to mark design studies on a board, hide, or paper, if supplies of the latter were still available.^[69] The definitive layout, with adjustments for the site constraints, was necessarily made directly on the ground.

To lay out the church, the friar had several options, all of them quite basic measuring techniques. In Mexico proper, lime was used to mark out the

plan of the building on the site.^[70] A free expenditure of valuable lime in such a manner would have been wasteful in the frontier conditions of New Mexico, so colored soils or sands could have served as worthy substitutes. A simple lightweight cord—easy to use and revise and easy to transport—was probably the principal means for marking the plan of the building on the ground. In conjunction with stakes for locating the corners, wall intersections, and principal building points, this medium was typically used in surveying and was readily applied to building construction.^[71]

Most useful to the religious builder would have been an understanding of geometry, in particular the three/four/five relationship of the right, or Pythagorean, triangle. Measurement was based on the vara , roughly thirty-three inches, although minor variations did exist. Using strings as measuring tapes, the builder could lay out with relative precision the edifice and its rooms. Alignment was ascertained with the compass and solar or celestial sightings, all of which were known to the military and presumably to the educated Franciscans. These instruments could have been employed in combination, with one used as a means to confirm the other. While relative accuracy could be attained, construction with massive stone or mud walls allowed for relative imprecision, as the thicknesses varied depending on the moisture in the adobe and the wall's state of preservation.

Each friar brought tools to found the church, including shovels and hoes for digging foundations and mixing adobe; axes, adzes, saws, chisels, and augurs for working the timber; and nails, tacks, and hinges for fitting the pieces together.^[72] Given that construction was undertaken by a sizable team of native labor organized in gangs under the supervision of a foreman, these tools would have been the minimum needed unless some domestic means was used to reproduce them. Fortunately, making adobe blocks required little formwork; and stone was used as it was found in situ.