It is crucial that all types of plans for a particular building or scheme align with one another. When creating freehand plans and developing your scheme it is useful to draw each one on tracing paper as these can be laid over one another to ensure that they all align.
In CAD software, the floor plans are drawn on top of one another to ensure that they fully align. There are also facilities within CAD programmes to repeat floor plans and to read them simultaneously. Essentially the drawings exist as a series of ‘layers’ within the program and each floor plan will be drawn on a different layer. This allows plans to be reproduced and altered quickly.
It is also important to ensure that floor plans are all aligned with the north point (or as near as possible to it), and all floor plans should be presented in the same orientation on a sheet to avoid any confusion when they are read together.
Project: School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa Location: Iowa, USA Architect: Steven Holl Architects Date: 2006
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Orthographic projection |
The University of Iowa’s new School of Art and Art History is a hybrid structure of open edges and an open centre. Instead of an object, the building is a ‘formless’ instrument. Flat or curved planes are slotted together or assembled with hinged sections. Flexible spaces open out from studios in warm weather, and the main horizontal passages are meeting places with interior glass walls that reveal work-in-progress.
This series of plans show the relationship of the different floor plans and also the relationship to the site and the surrounding landscape.
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Project: Duckett House Location: New Forest, UK Architect: John Pardey Architects Date: 2005
This range of drawings shows a concept perspective sketch (above) that explains the relationship of the building elements, a site plan (right) and more detailed layout plans of ground and first floors (facing page).
Set within a conservation area, this private house aims to achieve a contemporary outlook that remains in-keeping with its sensitive context. The concept is based on the idea of creating an architecture that respects the idea of vernacular buildings by avoiding a single form in favour of an assemblage of smaller elements. The house therefore divides into three functions; guest/study, living and sleeping. These are used to create three interlocking forms that are clad in cedar above a white wall. A central chimney anchors the composition and rises above a black zinc roof that echoes traditional slate.
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Orthographic projection |
Project: Nanjing Museum of Art and Architecture (facing page, top)
Location: Nanjing, China Architect: Stephen Holl Architects Date: 2006
This section drawing shows the relationship between the museum and its landscape. Part of the scheme is set within the landscape, and the upper gallery is supported above the lower part of the building allowing views across the surrounding area.
A section drawing is an orthographic projection of a three-dimensional object from the position of a vertical plane through the object. In other words, it is a vertical cut through a building. A section drawing is one of the most useful and revealing drawings in the design and description of a building. As with all two-dimensional drawings, a section is an abstract representation.
It would be impractical and impossible to actually slice through a building and reveal its internal connections, so a useful analogy is to consider cutting through something it is possible to slice. For example, if you cut a piece of fruit, such as an apple, it will become immediately apparent that its skin is very thin and its flesh is relatively solid and dense, but if you slice an orange you will expose a thicker skin protecting a softer fruit inside.
Section drawings communicate the connection between the inside and the outside of a building and the relationships between the building’s rooms. They can also display the thickness of the building’s walls and their relationship to internal elements such as the roof, the external boundary walls, gardens and other spaces.
Without accompanying section drawings, the building plans can only suggest spatial arrangements. Once the section drawings are read alongside the plans, the heights of ceilings, doors and windows, double height spaces or mezzanine decks can be described and explained. Together, the section and plan drawings allow the three-dimensional picture of the building to be better understood.
Project: New York University Location: New York City, USA Architect: Steven Holl Architects Date: 2007
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Plans > Sections > Elevations |
This concept section drawing was produced as part of a design scheme for the interior renovation of an 1890 corner building at the New York University. The concept organises new spaces around light and the phenomenal properties of materials. A new stair shaft below a new skylight joins the six-level building vertically with a shifting porosity of light and shadow that change seasonally. The ground level, utilised by the entire university, contains a new curvilinear wooden auditorium on a cork floor.
Long and short sections
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Project: Nanjing Museum of Art and Architecture Location: Nanjing, China Architect: Steven Holl Architects Date: 2006 |
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This long section drawing describes the relationship between the various galleries on the museum’s lower block and the storage and plant hidden underneath. There is another building element raised above that houses a model gallery. |
As with architectural plans, simply producing a single section drawing of a proposed building is insufficient. The different section drawings should be taken from the most interesting, complex or unusual parts of the plan and will explain an aspect of the building that cannot be understood from the plan drawings alone. A long section drawing is created from the longest part of the plan to show the interrelationships between the areas within it. A short section drawing is taken from the narrowest part of the plan.
All section drawings are individually labelled (the standard convention is to use AA, BB, CC and so on for each one) and the corresponding labels are displayed on the plan to show where the section line is cut. Section drawings are also labelled with their orientation points (north, east, etc.) so that they can be read in conjunction with the elevation drawings.