Floor plan[edit source | editbeta]

A floor plan is the most fundamental architectural diagram, a view from above showing the arrangement of spaces in building in the same way as a map, but showing the arrangement at a particular level of a building. Technically it is a horizontal section cut through a building (conventionally at three feet / one metre above floor level), showing walls, windows and door openings and other features at that level. The plan view includes anything that could be seen below that level: the floor, stairs (but only up to the plan level), fittings and sometimes furniture. Objects above the plan level (e.g. beams overhead) can be indicated as dotted lines. Geometrically, plan view is defined as a vertical orthographic projection of an object on to a horizontal plane, with the horizontal plane cutting through the building.

A floor plan is a drawing that shows a room as seen from above. Everything in a floor plan appears flat. Architects use floor plans to show what a room or building will look like. Anyone who draws (or drafts) a floor plan is called a draftsperson. Floor plans usually show the measurements (called dimension lines) for how long things are in real life. In the example to the right, the back wall is 24 feet long in real life and the side wall is 30 feet long. Other dimension lines may show the length of windows, the distances from walls to windows, and so on. Floor plans may be drafted to scale, which means reducing the size of a drawing so the whole room can fit on a piece of paper. A common scale is 1/4 inch equals 1 foot. This means that if something is drawn 1/4 inch long in a floor plan, it is 1 foot long in real life. In the drawing to the right, the back wall is 6 inches long on paper, so it is 24 feet long in real life. If something is drawn the exact same size as it is in real life, it is called "full scale." A draftsperson always indicates the scale used in a floor plan.

Floor plans may be drafted by hand with a pencil (to draw thick or thin lines), ruler (to draw straight lines to a specific length), aprotractor (to draw the angles where walls meet), and graph paper (which usually has 1/4 inch boxes, to make floor plans easier to draft in 1/4"=1' scale). They can also be drafted by computer, using CAD (computer-aided design) software, such as AutoCAD or MS PowerPoint. CAD software makes it very easy to draft scale drawings. Elevation[edit source | editbeta] An elevation is a view of a building seen from one side, a flat representation of one faade. This is the most common view used to describe the external appearance of a building. Each elevation is labelled in relation to the compass direction it faces, e.g. the north elevation of a building is the side that most closely faces north. [8] Buildings are rarely a simple rectangular shape in plan, so a typical elevation may show all the parts of the building that are seen from a particular direction. Geometrically, an elevation is a horizontal orthographic projection of a building on to a vertical plane, the vertical plane normally being parallel to one side of the building. Architects also use the word elevation as a synonym for faade, so the north elevation is literally the north-facing wall of the building. Section drawing of the Observatorium at Potsdam. Cross section[edit source | editbeta] A cross section, also simply called a section, represents a vertical plane cut through the object, in the same way as a floor plan is a horizontal section viewed from the top. In the section view, everything cut by the section plane is shown as a bold line, often with a solid fill to show objects that are cut through, and anything seen beyond generally shown in a thinner line. Sections are used to describe the relationship between different levels of a building. In the Observatorium drawing illustrated here, the section shows the dome seen from the outside, a second dome that can only be seen inside the building, and the way the space between the two accommodates a large astronomical telescope: relationships that would be difficult to understand from plans alone. A sectional elevation is a combination of a cross section, with elevations of other parts of the building seen beyond the section plane. Geometrically, a cross section is a horizontal orthographic projection of a building on to a vertical plane, with the vertical plane cutting through the building.