Hey, Eric here with Thirty by Forty Design Workshop.
Since so many people have asked, I thought I'd share exactly how I produced my floorplan
drawings and show you how architects think about and create technical drawings.
Once you understand just a couple of key concepts I think you’ll find it easy to reproduce
some of the simple graphical style I use in my drawings.
Sound good?
Alright let's get into it.
Now, I happen to use CAD for my drawing work right now, but you can do this with any tool
you have on hand: pen, pencil, BIM, whatever you choose.
Tools don't make the drawing, you do.
I use probably the most primitive form of CAD there is, AutoCAD LT so, that's proof
in itself that you don't need multiple thousand dollar BIM software to make nice drawings.
Use whatever tools you have available.
An architect's job is to order things and this certainly extends to our drawings too.
There's the organization of the line work on the page, the layout of the sheet, and
there's also the order of information that you're depicting, the overall drawing hierarchy.
Each requires that you know exactly what you're trying to communicate.
Now, I want to keep this simple for this tutorial so, I'll really just be going over how I draw
floor plans, but the principles apply to all the different types of drawings.
The goal of a floor plan is to show the relationship of the spaces to one another, all the physical
features of the interior and exterior spaces, and to precisely describe the real dimensions
of those relationships.
It also serves as a sort of overall map to show the team of tradespeople, the ones you're
relying on to construct your architecture, where to look for supplemental information.
So, it's naturally a diagram.
We can't show everything, we have to decide just what's important and leave out the rest.
A floor plan is an overhead view of a horizontal cut through the building usually taken at
four feet above the floor level and of course it's drawn to scale.
And so, the first ordering principle is that the things you're cutting through - primarily
the walls - should always be the heaviest lines on the page.
So, key concept number one has to do with line weight and if that's a confusing term
check the video in the cards for another tutorial where I describe exactly what that is and
its importance.
These drawings look this way because there's a strong contrast between line weight: the
very thin lines and the very thick ones.
In CAD, when we're drawing, we draw on different layers.
Each layer is transparent and they stack together to form the drawing.
You can control what you see and what you don't by turning layers on and off.
Separating things into layers allows us to modify our line weights - among other things
- to quickly change what's being depicted as heavy and what's not.
The process of design involves many changes so, keeping things organized on separate layers
will allow you to change things efficiently.
Now, I like to keep things ultra-simple and for this exercise especially I set up my layer
groups by line weight and that's all.
Some architects and consultants use hundreds of layers and I suppose, in some cases, it
makes sense assuming you need that level of control, but I recommend starting with just
a few.
Mine are all in a template file that I use to start new drawings and they're described
very simply from heavy all the way to superfine.
I also have a few additional layers which are helpful, one is for annotations, things
like text, dimensions, and detail bubbles; one is for hidden lines to show something
above or below and then one is for hatch patterns.
I can turn off any of the layers I don't need so I can work more quickly or in a less cluttered
environment.
So, you may need more or less depending on the type of work you do, but this is a nice
simple place to start.
Any heavy lines you want to draw you'll put on the heavy layer, very thin ones on the
light layer, or super fine ones on the super fine layer and so forth.
In this way, it's a bullet-proof system for forcing you to pay attention to line weight,
which is, in my opinion, the most important thing in making your drawings graphically
convincing.
Now, stick with me I promise not to get too technical.
My CAD program is set up to print these lines according to their color and color is assigned
by layer.
So, if I'm drawing on the heavy layer the line is always white and white always corresponds
with a certain line thickness.
Make sense?
White is always associated with a certain thickness, which is set in - what my program
AutoCAD LT calls - the color table.
But, all of that honestly is not really important because whether or not you're using AutoCAD
you can simply change the thickness of the line on your drawing.
In AutoCAD LT I use polylines to change thickness, but there are other ways, even in AutoCAD,
and your software might call it something altogether different.
By changing thickness, this adds even more control over how much punch drawing has and
what's nice is that it's clearly visible on the screen as having a heavier line weight.
Now, if you start making really thick lines everywhere just appreciate the fact that when
you change the scale you're printing your drawing at, the lines will look thicker or
thinner.
So, just be aware of that.
For the quarter inch scale residential floor plans I'm drawing here, I like to draw the
outer edges of the exterior walls on the heavy layer and add a little extra punch by using
a one-inch thick polyline.
If you make a template drawing with a variety of thicknesses of lines in it you can adjust
to whatever scale you're printing or working at.
Now, to get into the real nitty gritty on the floor plan drawing, exterior walls are
assigned to the heavy layer and I show them as a one-inch thick polyline as I've already
said.
The medium layer is very close to the heavy one in weight and so I use it for accenting
things like the top risers of stairs, or site retaining walls, or site boulder groupings.
I use the light layer for floor edges, door slabs, window frames, counters, cabinetry,
and plumbing fixtures.
And then, the door swings and like the window sills, I put on the superfine layer.
Also on the superfine layer, I put all the walls subassemblies, things like stud framing
lines, or substrates like plywood sheathing, or tile backer.
But, more on this shortly.
Furniture is drawn on the extra fine layer, floor hatches on the hatch layer, cabinets
and counters are hatched differently depending on how tall they are too.
Overhead lines are on the hidden layer and text and annotations are on the text layer
obviously.
Again, more on this in a minute.
Okay so, the next key concept is to use screening.
Now, I'm not talking about hatches per se here but using screened pen weights.
I use everything from a 10% screen all the way up to an 80% screen.
In my color table, remember that's the file that tells my printer what thickness lines
to print, I've assigned the colors 201 through 208 different corresponding screened pen weights.
So, anything assigned color 201 prints as a 10% screen, 202 is a 20% screen, and so
on.
And, for even more variety you might change the line type too.
So, let's take a one inch thick polyline and assign it the 201 color and a hidden line
type and now you have a thick dashed line with a 10% screen, which might be great for
showing ventilation runs on a floor plan, or an overhead tie rod for example, or you
might use a solid one for a handrail, or a louver vent in an elevation.
You can also apply this technique to our next key concept which is: using hatches to add
depth and detail.
Hatches are basically patterns that infill certain boundaries in your drawing.
They can be made up of tiny dots, shapes, crisscrossing lines, or dashed outlines, or
- my personal favorite – solids.
When you start using hatches along with the screened pen weights, you have nearly infinite
options for creating depth and subtlety in your drawings.
I use hatches to shade the exterior walls, what architects call poche.
In this drawing it's an 80% screen on a solid hatch.
So, color 208 on the hatch layer.
I use hatches to indicate materials like wood flooring, or concrete block, or tile patterns,
and I also use them for shade and shadow to call attention to something important in the
drawing.
On floor plans I use a variety of scales of dot pattern hatches on say, descending stairs,
or as angled lines to show a partial height wall, or cabinetry, or a countertop surface.
I also use solid screened hatches on all my glazed surfaces on the exterior elevations
from between 40 and 60% screen.
I use them in the tree backgrounds - the ones you see here in the elevation drawings.
I basically use them everywhere I can because they help call attention to things that I
think are important and they also add a softness to the drawing that I think looks - I don't
know – like, painterly I guess.
Now, I talked about this in the Q&A video recently about how to get a feel for room
dimensions, but by adding furniture, scale figures, cars, trees, and other elements to
indicate scale, you'll introduce a real sense that your architecture is meant to be inhabited.
Doing this also ensures you're accommodating the regular elements your end users will need
to functionally use the architecture as well.
Knowing your client wants to use an 8-foot sofa, for example, will help you locate the
floor outlets nearby and ensure it's not obstructing a door swing.
It's okay if you're missing this information early on and you're working on conceptual
plans, but I like to begin with at least some idea of how I'll be constructing the building.
For example, is it a masonry exterior?
Are there glass curtain walls?
Concrete, wood framed walls, finishes, each of these materials has a thickness and when
you start to turn corners and add jogs, or if you begin intersecting different buildings
or surfaces, knowing what those materials are becomes really important when you're drawing.
In the end, your floor plan can be as general or as detailed as you like, but the more detail
you imbue your drawing with, the more useful a tool it will be later on when you're drawing
column details, or figuring out how the glazed wall meets the concrete retaining wall.
Now, BIM programs and other CAD programs have different ways of doing this, you can actually
setup entire wall assemblies so that you're drawing one line and it's plotting the entire
wall thickness and material assembly for you as you go along.
AutoCAD LT is the most basic of 2d drafting CAD programs so, I'm really keeping this basic
here.
Now, for our Squid Cove project, we actually started with a double two-by-four stud wall
on the exterior spaced apart to prevent thermal bridging.
So, I offset the outer perimeter by three and a half inches, which is the width of a
2x4 wall and then another quarter inch for the thermal break, and then another three
and a half for the inner stud wall.
Then, I offset the interior finish thickness of half inch for the gypsum wallboard, and
then on the outside a half an inch for the exterior sheathing, and another inch for the
exterior shingled walls.
Now, along the way as the pricing came back for the double two-by-four wall system it
turned out it was a lot more expensive than we anticipated.
So, we had to change it back to two by six walls Now, because windows take a long time
to fabricate, this change actually happened after our windows had been ordered and so,
those openings were fixed on the plan.
Essentially, we had to use those opening sizes.
So, we were left with this detail at the interior corners to resolve and knowing the actual
systems and sizes of everything around them allowed us to design the trim around the windows
that not only matched the detailing of the rest of the project, but made it look like
it was an intentional design decision.
So, when you can, show materials.
They also fill in this fine layer of line work that makes the contrast between thick
and really pop.
Lastly, sort of the icing on the cake, we have annotations.
Now, annotations round out the information you're conveying on the plan, they're really
important wayfinding tools for the contractor.
So, they need to be very clearly organized.
I use red text to make it clear that the annotations are a part of another ordering system and
also something that they need to pay attention to, and the ink is just pennies more to print
them in color.
Honestly, I think it's so worth it.
You could make it blue or gray too, whatever you choose.
I like the red because it's easy to point to a note and say, “Hey it's noted in red,”
it's really hard to miss, right?
Annotations describe things that you're not able to draw, they reference other drawings,
and details, and should all be on the text layer so you can turn them on and off as needed
for presentation, or while you're making other changes to the plan.
Annotations grow over time, they'll be basic at first, things like room labels, and then
they'll get progressively more numerous as you make design decisions, filling in with
door tags, and wall tags, and detail bubbles.
Now, with annotations I'm begging you please, please, don't use those hand lettered fonts,
just uninstall those from your computer!
Now, I use Franklin Gothic for mine, but honestly, any sans-serif font will do.
Actually, anything but those chiseled pseudo hand lettering fonts should be fine.
Now, you'll know you've done all this correctly when you squint your eyes and you can easily
see what's important.
Do the walls standout?
Do the annotations fade?
As you spend more time looking for information, more information should become apparent, almost
like a pull focus or a slow reveal.
So, that's it, I hope it was helpful.
Use a variety of line weights and keep them really contrasty for best effect.
Now, if I've helped you in any way please do smash that like button below and let me
know your suggestions for future videos in the comments.
What are you guys struggling with right now?
Appreciate you guys as always, see you again next time.
Cheers!