Turns out, many things we see around us are actually made up of, or composed of, shapes such as triangles, rectangles, squares and parallelograms. This means they are composite shapes, so to work out their area we can use what we know about finding:
To work out the area of a composite shape, you can use either of two methods, and this is true of any composite shape. You can:
Let's see how to do it, using a roof section, and working it out both ways.
In this applet, you'll see an unusual shape. By revealing the shapes, one by one, you can see how the area could be calculated. Could you imagine it would be possible, at the start?
Consider the given shape.
Determine the area of rectangle $B$B.
Hence calculate the total area of the composite shape.
Find the shaded area in the figure shown.
Find the total area of the figure shown.
You can choose which method to use to work out the area of composite shapes, and there can even be more than one way to make up a composite shape.