office interior design template
hey, eric here with 30 by 40 design workshop,this week we'll be taking our messy hand sketches for our gallery house project and turningthem into digital drawings. i'll show you how to do that without losingall the evocative qualities of the sketches, the things that make them so beautiful. so, if you've struggled this before and yourcad drawings aren't quite looking the way you want them to i have a few tips to help. i never start designing in cad, in fact, itry to resist doing any work in cad until the client and i have met together a few timesand we've chosen a design to move forward with.
everything in the beginning, goes back andforth between the sketchbook, trace, and physical models. and, for me at least, this is faster, it allowsme to test lots of ideas, and it just feels less fixed and more fluid. at a certain point though, some things arejust easier to resolve and visualize in cad and of course we need to start making it allreal and figure out how we're actually going to construct the project. these realities will start to influence ourdesign decisions and so it's time to ditch the sketchbook, at least for now.
so, to get started you'll need a cad programand there are many to choose from and although there are some free alternatives most arepaid. now, i happen to use autocad lt, you mightuse revit, you should use whatever tool suits you. check the cards for a video where i discussthe software in more detail. next, you'll need to gather up any digitaldocumentation you have available: a site survey and building survey if you have an existingstructure you're working with like we have here. i've already drafted the part of the existingstructure that's going to remain for the gallery
house project and i have the site plan frommy surveyor. i'll also grab a scale and all the sketches,models, and documentation from the early design phase and that's it, we're ready to startdrafting. so, let's start a new floor plan drawing usingour template and bring in all our base plan information. now, i always use a template when startinga new drawing because it has all my graphical conventions baked in, which means i can quicklyreplicate those standards with every new drawing. so, you can see here we have all the thingswe need in one file: dimension styles, notations, blocks, titles, all the line weights i liketo use, my title block; everything's here
for me to copy around and use to quickly matchproperties. now, if you use autocad and want to pick mytemplate, check the cards in the description below for information on where you'll findthat. the first round of floor plans i treat verymuch like a sketch, it's not important for me to know where every door or window openingis. i like to think in large moves: where do youenter, where do you bring light in, what's solid and what's void? this first cad version is almost like miesvan der rohe’s barcelona pavilion - you're drawing walls, columns, floors, and a roofto define space.
treat it more like a graphic design challengethan a technical assembly manual. alright now let's get into the tactical stuff. bring the existing conditions informationinto the base file and from here start by blocking out the overall size and shape ofthe floor plan first, which is scaled right from the schematic sketches. let's get a grid going here right off, that'llkeep things tidy and this will also serve as a starting point for our structural order. now, we can always break from the rigidityof the grid later but starting with one will give those points where we choose to divergea lot more impact.
i'll start by drawing the outside perimeterof the wall framing starting on the grid lines using just regular line segments and thisis really as simple as it gets. you should be aware that every line you'redrawing in cad corresponds with a real-world building material, which of course has a certainthickness and relationship to other materials. eventually, i'll convert each line segmentinto a polyline and i do this for two reasons: first, rather than a collection of hundredsof single lines a poly line is one object so it's just simpler. the other reason i like polylines is becauseyou can change the thickness of them on the screen and this is one of the graphic tricksi use to emphasize parts of the drawing i
want to call attention to. polylines are kind of a shortcut to achievingthe look i'm after. now, there's plenty of other ways to do thisthis is just how i do it. once the perimeter lines are converted toa polyline i then offset that to the inside of the building and the distance i use isjust the thickness of the exterior wall assembly. so, let's just say this is a 2x6 wall, i'lloffset the perimeter line to the inside by six inches, which represents a five-and-a-half-inchstud wall and a half inch interior wall finish. for the interior partitions, i usually beginby making them all six and a half inches wide a 2x6 wall with one half inch of finish oneach side.
for doors and windows i just copy around theblocks from my template and stretch them as necessary to fit the openings. next are: floor planes, decks, and overlooks. and, of course, stairs both interior and exterior. for this project, retaining walls and exteriorsteps will be a part of the entry sequence and we need to make sure we're allowing properroom to accommodate access and the actual grade changes between parking and the finishedfloor level. also at this stage, i like to draw any bigblocks of cabinetry i want to use to divide space or to suggest use like: workspace ina kitchen, laundry areas, or closets in a
bedroom. and finally, we can round it out with anybasic furniture, fixtures, or equipment that's important. in the gallery house, there's a concert grandpiano we want to accommodate in the living room, which is a really sizable instrumentand of course the seating group needs to work with that too. we also want to begin showing things likeshowers and toilets. now, these are all just diagrams really butthey suggest to both our client and ourselves exactly how the spaces will be used and theyhelp us to think about the proper clearances
around these items. in the template file, you'll see what layersi put things on, there's a small example plan and elevation in there too to give you anidea how i assign things in my drawings. i like to keep it simple, and for the worki do, it's fine. for a larger office though, with multiplepeople working in the same file, you would definitely need more layers. for a schematic plan, this is probably asfar as you have to take it and you shouldn't feel like you have to solve all the problemswith this early plan. this will be one of many iterations.
at this point, i'll change the thickness ofthe polylines making up all the walls to punch up the weight, then i'll finish by addinga toned solid hatch inside the walls on the hatch layer. so with a few simple changes, you can seewe've taken this rather dull set of lines and made some big improvements. the real trick to achieving a drawing thatreads well is to use all the tools you'd normally use when you're sketching and that means thefull complement of line weights from the thick to thin. you want to build contrast in your drawing.
see in this example how the outermost linesof the walls always get the heaviest line weight while the interior lines are all assigneda very fine line weight? it's this contrast between heavy and thinthat makes your drawing legible. the closer you look, the more you see, andlikewise as you move farther away, the details fade and all you see are the darker lines. this lends your drawing both precision anddepth. in addition to line weight, you'll also varythe line types using dashed and dotted lines where appropriate - for hidden elements - andalso, don't forget about shading. now, i use shading on things like: cabinetry,stair runs, floor materials, and i add it
to the exterior elevations to give them depth. and, the last element to get your graphicsall tuned up are your notations. i like to use red because it signifies they'reclearly of a separate order than all the line work but you can use whatever you'd like. now, this is just the way i've chosen to doit, you should definitely experiment and develop your own style and you should look at thedrawings of other pros you admire and try to emulate their style. the absolute worst thing you can do - thething you want to avoid from a graphical standpoint - is to keep everything on the page the samevalue and the same line weight.
as you settle on a plan layout and refineyour drawings you'll continue adding in the real-world physical material information toyour drawing. and, all of this information might seem likeoverkill until you understand that it's how these intersections of materials are handled,that distinguishes you the architect from someone merely smashing together buildingcomponents. everything is a design opportunity and howthese assemblies meet will change how your design evolves and how it's perceived. cad allows you to be very precise which isuseful for laying out very technical relationships, but i can find it can sometimes be creativelylimiting too because it forces you to focus
almost too closely on solving for minute problemsrather than pulling back and looking at the larger design issues. so, to fight against this i'll always plotmy cad drawings to sketch over and refine, and that's also a good point to check to makesure the drawing is communicating what you intended. it's this back-and-forth process that preservesthe utility of cad, but keeps it from imposing a really technical aesthetic on your work. we'll talk more about the evolution of thegallery house project in future videos, very excited to see it coming together and takingon a life of its own, that's a really good
sign. smash that like button below if this has helpedyou in any way. keep striving to make your cad drawings lookbetter and we'll see you again next time. cheers, my friends!