Get a detailed walk-through of how to interpret floor plans and building sections in architectural drawings. The article explains the significance of symbols, how to understand dimensions, and how to navigate through different areas of the building using these plans.
Key Insights
- The symbols in architectural drawings denote different sections of the building. For example, '1 over A4.3' directs you to look at the specific section on sheet A4.3.
- Horizontal sections, also known as longitudinal sections, represent a horizontal slice through the building, while vertical slices are referred to as transverse sections. These sections are all depicted in the floor plan.
- Apart from the dimensions and sections, architectural drawings also contain callouts for enlarged plans of specific areas. For example, '1 over D7.2' indicates that the enlarged plan of the area can be found on page D7.2, image 1.
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What I'd like to bring to your attention, too, are these symbols that are right here. You can see that it's saying 1 over A4.3. I have 2 over A4.1, 1 over A4.1, and another symbol over here and one here. This is a floor plan.
So this is a horizontal slice through the building. These symbols here with the polyline following down from there are saying if you want to look at the building section that is cut through the building right here, go look on sheet A4.1, look at image 2. So what I'm going to do very quickly is I'm just going to zoom back, and then I'll tab down, and you can see that here is sheet A4.1. I have image 1, and I have image 2. So these pages are vertical slices through the building cut at particular locations. So again, if I go back to my basement plan, you can see that I have three vertical sections and two horizontal sections.
These horizontal sections we call longitudinal sections because they're the longer part of the building. We call these other sections transverse because they're going through the shorter part of the building. So again, I have the floor plan.
We've come in through the garage. We understand dimensions. We have the keynotes.
I come into the mudroom. I go up a couple of steps, and I'm now at this hallway meeting area. I have an elevator shaft over here.
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What you can see is that I also have a callout that says 1 over D7.2. So I have the symbol. I have the lines that are connecting to a heavier polyline that goes around the elevator shaft. What this symbol is saying is that when I want to see the enlarged plan of this area, to go to image 1 on page D7.2.
