BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – GUIDANCE
HOME BUILDING PLANS LEXICON
"How? Yes, how do people communicate about building? The builders' language is the language of building materials, dimensions, levels, angles, views, elevations, schematics, and details, legends, symbols, and keys. This is not chicken-and-egg time; the builders' language rules." Before The Architect
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The language of home building plans, house plans, of architectural design, drafting, and construction includes Concept Drawings, Model Drawings, and Builder Drawings in all the parts and pieces of Plans & Elevations, Cross-Sections, Schematics, and Details.
The language of architectural design and construction also includes —
 | ABBREVIATIONS for which the designer provides keys to identify the words indicated by the cryptic letters |
| Dictionary of words and phrases with meanings unique to design and construction |
You see here the sorts of cryptic words, letters, numbers, and figures you'll find scattered all over drawings of home building plans. Characters and symbols mean things very specific to a designer and to a builder, and you'd better have some clue as to their meaning or you do yourself and their work substantial disfavor. Pay attention, or crucial information about your design and building will be right in front of you and you'll carry on as dumb as dirt.
The Autocad Granddad plans eventually to give you the straight scoop on all these facets of the language of designers and draftsmen and builders of home building plans. He's starting this lexicon with a key to the long, long list of just about 400 abbreviations to pack any architectural drafting worth its salt. These abbreviations accomplish several ends —
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save loads of space so they don't get so much in the way of the drawing to which they refer |
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look cool (even though they are not especially hard to get the hang of and recall) |
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give the draftsman a chance to highlight, or "float", the drawing. |
When you put a lot of these abbreviations on a drawing, it is good practice to send along a sheet identifying all the abbreviations you used. That sheet is appropriately identified as a "Key" or "Legend" or even simply "Abbreviations." The Autocad Granddad's Key to Abbreviations follows along this line of identification.
It's worth noting that there's nothing sacrosanctity in this listing. So long as you give the other guy your list of abbreviations, you can legitimately abbreviate anything any way you want. The AG does it all the time, just for fun.
On the other hand, the Autocad Granddad's Designwise and Draftingwise Dictionary is another realm altogether. It's going to take lifetime to finish off this puppy. So don't get your hopes up.
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The geez used to have a jam-packed bunch of symbols in this lexicon, but recently took them off the site. They sucked up too much space. If you get really hung up on some symbol or another, email me and I'll do what I can.
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