a)  Assess client needs 

As mentioned in the Architectural Design Process:

Before a Floor Plan is developed, the designer must ask many questions of the client to make sure the client’s needs in a house are met. Some typical questions and concerns would be:

• Budget

• Property size

• Size of family

• Lifestyle (family oriented, business oriented, like to cook, like to entertain, etc)

• Physical needs (i.e. is the person in a wheelchair, or unable to negotiate stairs)

• Hobbies (need a workshop?)

• Number of cars (garage)

b)  Develop preliminary design

Preliminary design
Regardless of where the idea starts, at some point someone puts "pencil to paper" and attempts to figure out what this building might look like, and what might be inside it.

From such sketches many ideas are formed into a more formal design. Before we can make sense of how to build it, we need an idea of what the form (the shape) of the building might look like. We also need some idea of what functions, spaces and uses are going to be accommodated inside, and where these might go based on the client's (or designer's) wishes.

To help both the designer and us to put some structure to the form and spaces we can use Bubble diagrams and building programs.

A Bubble Diagram is just that -- a series of bubbles that are scaled relative to each other to indicate the approximate size and relation to each other.

For example, this might is an early bubble diagram for a small single family detached single floor house:

c)  Develop building program 

d)  Select appropriate codes 

e)  Identify construction methods

a)  Describe room adjacency guidelines 

b) Follow design sketch 

c) Layout exterior and interior walls 

Interior walls are placed from one end of an exterior wall and then dimensioned continuously to the centerline of the interior wall.

NOTE: Interior walls should be placed at even-number intervals, preferably in multiples of 2".

For example, it would not be sensible to place a wall 8'-3-13/32 from an exterior wall or the center of another wall.
This dimension should be 8'-4"

d) Layout doors and windows 

At this point you will be adding doors and windows.

Doors sizes will be:

    Exterior Doors       36”
    Interior Doors        34”
    Bathroom Doors       32”

Doors should be placed in the corner of a room with the door opening into the room, and the door swing to the wall.

Leave a 3" door jamb in the corner.

Doors do not need to be located by a dimension if they are in the corner of a room. If they are not in the corner of a room, then they must be located by a dimension.

Window sizes will be:

Width:    determined by you depending on room size

Depth:    Living Room   5' - 7'
              Dining Room  4' - 5'
              Bedrooms      3'
              Kitchen         3' (above counter)
              Bathroom      3'

e) Layout closets

a)  Use appropriate wall thicknesses 

Exterior walls will be drawn 6" thick, and dimensioned (justified) from the outside perimeter. (Exterior walls are actually 7-1/8" but exterior sheathing and siding will not be shown for clarity)

Interior walls will be drawn 4-1/2" thick and will be dimensioned (justified) from the center.

b) Draw appliances and fixtures 

We will use pre-drawn blocks for all our appliances (refrigerator, stove etc) and fixtures (toilet, bath, etc)

Click HERE to see the blocks

There are common standards that are used to layout plumbing fixtures in kitchens and bathrooms. Click on the links below to see these standards.

Kitchen Dimensions

Kitchen Space

Bathroom Dimensions

Bathroom Space

c) Insert door and window blocks & symbols

d) Draw stairs in plan view

We cannot draw the stairs in Plan View until we have drawn the stairs in Section. At this early stage, we will draw a cloud where the stairs should go and put in a note "Stairs to be determined"

Later, once we have the stair information, we will show the runs of the stairs and whatever handrails are visible.

We must show an arrow going up along with the note "Up"

We must also make a note

STAIRS
X RISERS @ _____"
X RUNS @ ______"

a)  Apply appropriate drawing scale 

Click HERE to go to Drawing Standards > Scale

b) Apply appropriate dimensions 

Click HERE to see a checklist that will cover dimensions, annotation and symbols

c) Apply appropriate annotation 

d) Apply appropriate symbols

e) Apply section and detail call-outs

The Section detail will then have the following title:

Note the line in the bottom half of the circle. This occurs only when the Section cut line and the Drawn Section appear on the same drawing.

If the section was cut on drawing 1 and displayed on drawing 6 the symbols would look like this:

Section Cut symbol         Section detail title