I was flabbergasted when I was first introduced to Archi drawing ever since my love for it is beyond the normal

Sometime ago, questions like what Archidrawing was? How to go about it etc. had been flooding my mind. Today I am glad to share this topic with you.

INTRODUCTION

Architectural drawing or architect's drawing is a technical drawing of a building that falls within the definition of architecture.

Architectural drawings are used by architects and others for a number of purposes:

• To develop a design idea into a coherent proposal
• To communicate ideas and concepts
• To convince clients of the merits of a design
• To enable a building contractor to construct it, as a record of the completed work, and
• To make a record of a building that already exists.

Conventionally, drawings were made in ink on paper or a similar material, and any copies required had to be laboriously made by hand. The twentieth century saw a shift to drawing on tracing paper, so that mechanical copies could be run off efficiently.

Architectural drawings are made according to a set of conventions, which include particular views (floor plan, section etc.), sheet sizes, units of measurement and scales, annotation and cross referencing.

The development of the computer had a major impact on the methods used to design and create technical drawings, making manual drawing almost obsolete, and opening up new possibilities of form using organic shapes and complex geometry. Today the vast majority of drawings are created using CAD software.

FLOOR PLAN

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 four feet / one metre and twenty centimetres 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 dashed lines.

SITE PLAN

Site plan shows the buildings (if any) already existing and those that are proposed, usually as a building footprint; roads, parking lots, footpaths, hard landscaping, trees and planting. For a construction project, the site plan also needs to show all the services connections: drainage and sewer lines, water supply, electrical and communications cables, exterior lighting etc.

A site plan is a specific type of plan, showing the whole context of a building or group of buildings. A site plan shows property boundaries and means of access to the site, and nearby structures if they are relevant to the design. For a development on an urban site, the site plan may need to show adjoining streets to demonstrate how the design fits into the urban fabric. Within the site boundary, the site plan gives an overview of the entire scope of work.

Site plans are commonly used to represent a building proposal prior to detailed design: drawing up a site plan is a tool for deciding both the site layout and the size and orientation of proposed new buildings. A site plan is used to verify that a proposal complies with local development codes, including restrictions on historical sites.

In this context the site plan forms part of a legal agreement, and there may be a requirement for it to be drawn up by a licensed professional: architect, engineer, landscape architect or land surveyor.

ELEVATION

An elevation is a view of a building seen from one side, a flat representation of one façade. 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. looking toward the north you would be seeing the southern elevation of the building.

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 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 façade, so the north elevation is literally the north-facing wall of the building

COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN

Computer-aided design is the use of computer software to create drawings. Today the vast majority of technical drawings of all kinds are made using CAD. Instead of drawing lines on paper, the computer records equivalent information electronically. There are many advantages to this system: repetition is reduced because complex elements can be copied, duplicated and stored for re-use.

Errors can be deleted, and the speed of draughting allows many permutations to be tried before the design is finalised. On the other hand, CAD drawing encourages a proliferation of detail and increased expectations of accuracy, aspects which reduce the efficiency originally expected from the move to computerisation.

Professional CAD software such as AutoCAD is complex and requires both training and experience before the operator becomes fully productive. Consequently, skilled CAD operators are often divorced from the design process. Simpler software such as SketchUp and Vectorworks allows for more intuitive drawing and is intended as a design tool.

CAD is used to create all kinds of drawings, from working drawings to photorealistic perspective views. Architectural renderings (also called visualisations) are made by creating a three-dimensional model using CAD. The model can be viewed from any direction to find the most useful viewpoints.

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