That's Good Sheet, Man

March 22, 2006 8:46 PM

What is the proper order and nomenclature for numbering architectural drawings? Typically, you break up drawings into different types of views: floorplans, sections, details, and elevations--both outside and

Here's the list I put together--is this the proper order?

1.01 = Site/Lot/Vicinity/Landscape
2.01 = Floorplans
3.01 = Exterior elevations
4.01 = Sections
5.01 = Interior elevations
6.01 = Details
7.01 = ?

Suppose sheet 5.02 references a detail on sheet 6.04/drawing 2. Should 6.04/2 reference back to 5.02? Or is that unnecessary?

Also, what's the proper form for details of details? 6.01.1? Or should I keep those drawings on the same sheet?

posted by fandango_matt to media & arts (5 comments total)

Read this (pdf) at the AIA website for a brief idea of what they recommend. Note however that these are simply suggestions. There's no "proper" order.

I'm not an architect, but as an engineer who has worked with many architects on projects, I can tell you that each firm has their own standards and ways of doing this. But your order above is not too different from what that AIA document shows.

The referencing back idea is incorporated in some drawings standards systems. Not sure if it's in the AIA standards, though. It can be helpful if you have a very large, complicated set of drawings with lots of sections and details.
posted by pitchblende at 9:02 PM on March 22, 2006

If you are referring to CSI standards- do a Google of CSI standards. There are 16 divisions- broken down to a microscopic detail. (They are being revised to a 42 division I believe). Generally, if you break your drawings to the follwoing directories you will be safe for a beginning: Electrical, Architectural, Structural, Mechanical, Civil and Miscellaneous. Hope that is what you are looking for.
posted by bytemover at 9:31 PM on March 22, 2006

Whoops! I forgot to include a crucial piece of information--I'm organizing drawings within a set, so these would be SG 0.00, where 0 = the number of the sheet.
posted by fandango_matt at 9:41 PM on March 22, 2006

Suppose sheet 5.02 references a detail on sheet 6.04/drawing 2. Should 6.04/2 reference back to 5.02? Or is that unnecessary?

Totally unnecessary, and if your drawings end up changing to any significant degree, a total nightmare. Generally in architectural notation and detail referencing you want to be as minimal as possible while still providing adequate information to be able to build the project the way you want it built. You also want to try to avoid redundancies in notation or material callouts, structural specifications, etc.

At my old office, our sheets were numbered like so:
T.* -- Title and note sheets
A1.* -- Site plans (which eventually include things like slope analysis plans and other stuff)
A2.* -- Floor plans and roof plan, starting at the bottom and moving up with higher numbers.
A3.* -- Reflected ceiling plans
A4.* -- Exterior elevations
A5.* -- Building sections and wall sections
A6.* -- Interior elevations
A7.* -- Details
A8.* -- Schedules (door, window, fixture, appliance, etc.)
A9.* -- This was a catch-all to pick up other drawings that didn't really fit elsewhere in the set, and were somewhat specialty oriented. I used it for cabinetry drawings, elevator cab drawings, pool/water feature drawings, and some enlarged plans.

The letter in front of each number is fairly important, as each discipline providing drawings for the building will start their sheet numbers with their own letter, like S for structural, E for electrical, P for plumbing, M for mechanical, etc. The A would obviously stand for architectural. The T drawings generally contain information that pertains to the whole set, like vicinity maps, code information, and general notes having to do with the municipality where the project is to be located, but are usually put together by the architect who is generally in charge of putting together and coordinating the whole drawings set.
posted by LionIndex at 8:08 AM on March 23, 2006

Also, what's the proper form for details of details? 6.01.1? Or should I keep those drawings on the same sheet?

Do you mean like if you have a detail that's complex enough that it has a detail called out within it? Just call it out as a regular detail within that detail, and have the extra-detailed detail within the same sequence, preferably on the same sheet.

Say for instance you're detailing a parapet wall intersection, where you have to show the flashing at the intersection, the base detail for whatever roofing system you're using, and the parapet coping detail. Say this detail is 7/A7.3. All the details that you reference from that detail should have the same number format, and should have their own detail box. However, if you're showing something with multiple views, you can just label those views 'A', 'B', etc. and call them out as such all within one detail box, taking care to adequately show where the views are in reference to each other (Like if A is a plan view and B is an elevation, show an arrow with a B in it to show which elevation you're detailing).

Also note that for details or other drawings referencing drawings on the same sheet, you eliminate the sheet number on the detail callout. So if your parapet wall intersection detail 7/A7.3 is referencing your base detail 10/A7.3, your detail callout in detail 7 would just say 10/-.
posted by LionIndex at 8:22 AM on March 23, 2006