Discover the importance and functions of various symbols used in floor plans in this article. Gain insight into what door tags, window tags, keynote symbols, room IDs, elevation call-outs, building sections, wall sections, and detail call-outs represent in architectural drawings.
Key Insights
- The article explains how symbols like circles, hexagons, squares, or rectangles on floor plans indicate specific details. For instance, a circle with a letter inside usually references a door schedule, while a hexagon adjacent to a window generally leads to a window schedule.
- Other symbols, such as exterior elevation call-outs or building section symbols, provide references to more detailed pages. For example, a symbol on a floor plan may guide viewers to page A2.1 at image 1 to see the elevation of a building drawn up.
- The piece also educates on the role of revision clouds and delta numbers in floor plans, which are used to highlight updates or modifications in the drawings. These revisions are usually referenced in a revision legend found in the title block.
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Hello, and welcome back. The next set of videos will be a general overview of some important topics we want to cover. When you are looking at floor plans of drawings, you will, for example, see a door symbol tag.
Now, the door tag is frequently a circle with a letter included inside the circle. So this circle and the letter would reference to a door schedule. And in that schedule, the actual description of the door would be included.
For the windows, we might have somebody using a hexagon adjacent to the window. The hexagon would include a number inside it. And the number would then be relating over to a window schedule.
And in the window schedule, the specifics of the window would be detailed. You will see many, many keynote symbols on a floor plan. These are typically call-outs where you'll have a number in a box.
There will be an arrow that will point to something. And on the keynote schedule will be a list of all the components that are using this keynote tag. We also have room IDs.
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With the room IDs, you'll typically have the name of the room and the room number. Please note that we are using standard shapes for these elements, circles, hexagons, squares, and rectangles. These are typical for many projects.
But depending on the designer or the CAD library used, these may be different shapes. You may see keynotes or window symbols as circles. To be safe, always check the symbol legends and schedules just to be sure.
We also have exterior elevation call-outs. So what's going to happen is that on the floor plan, I might have a symbol that looks like this or a symbol that looks like this. And what this is saying is, in order to see the elevation of the building that would be drawn up here, go look on page A2.1 at image 1. Another example would be if I had an elevation being built over here, I would have the number 2 over an A2.1, meaning if you want to see the building elevation that's over here to the right, and you can see the big arrow pointing to the right, go look on page A2.1 at image 2. We will also have building section call-outs.
Building section symbols work together. Building sections are typically slices through a building that show everything from the footings all the way up to the roof structure. If I had these symbols on a floor plan, the two view markers would be connected by a line.
This line could be broken so that it does not interfere with the drawing information inside of the building. And these symbols are saying, to see the building section that's cut through here, go look on page A3.1 at image 1, and you will see that building section. Similar to the building section is the wall section.
This call-out looks very similar, but it is the little hat compared with the big hat on the building section. The wall section will only cut through part of the building, usually the wall and some of the connected floors, ceilings, and roofs. If we look at the symbol, this horizontal line would say that the wall section is cut through here.
So it's looking through the wall that goes right here. So there's the slice, but it's cutting through the wall section right there. It's looking up.
You can see the arrow. You can see the little leader end. And it would say, go look on page A4.1, image 1, to see the wall section.
Sometimes we will have details. So these would be blow-ups of certain things. Where I have this thicker line, that would say the detail section is cut through here.
But to see that particular detail, go look at image 1 on page A5.1 to see the detail that's cut through here. Another option might be that I might have a floor plan, and I might have an enlarged area in through here, which might be another detail call-out. We have a dashed line that goes around the area that's going to be enlarged in the detail.
And we would say to see this enlarged area, go and look at image 2 on page A5.1. On a floor plan, you will also frequently see interior elevation call-outs. These are typically in rooms that have a lot of design input from the client, like bathrooms and kitchens. This is the typical design where we have a circle that's inside a rotated square or a diamond shape.
At the corners of the diamond, we will have either letters or numbers. And in this case, these represent drawings 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d that are found on sheet A7.1. You can see here something similar where these reference drawings 2, 3, 4, and 5 on sheet A7.1. If they are all filled in, then all views are being referenced. And you may see some plans where none of these are filled in.
These are column grid lines, which are typical for projects that have steel or concrete construction. The structural grid is usually defined by the structural engineer. The grid allows us to reference building elements from a common datum point, in this case, the vertical and horizontal lines of the structural grid.
We can only see grid line 1, which is a vertical line, and grid line A, which is a horizontal line. But there would be many more vertical and horizontal lines on our floor plans. As we're developing a set of drawings, everything is always changing.
When we have made a modification, what we typically do is we put a revision cloud around it, and we put a delta number, meaning change. The revision cloud is this kind of bubble that will surround the updated information. The delta is the triangle, and this will always include the revision number, in this case, the number 1. This number will reference the revision legend, usually found in the title block, to keep track of the revision date and other notes.
So these are symbols that you will see on most floor plans that start directing people where to go on other sheets of paper to find out more information. And again, we will be working much more with these as we move forward in the course. I just wanted to introduce these to you.