home interior software
hey, eric here with thirty by forty designworkshop. since so many people have asked, i thoughti'd share exactly how i produced my floorplan drawings and show you how architects thinkabout and create technical drawings. once you understand just a couple of key conceptsi think you’ll find it easy to reproduce some of the simple graphical style i use inmy drawings. sound good? alright let's get into it. now, i happen to use cad for my drawing workright now, but you can do this with any tool you have on hand: pen, pencil, bim, whateveryou choose.
tools don't make the drawing, you do. i use probably the most primitive form ofcad there is, autocad lt so, that's proof in itself that you don't need multiple thousanddollar bim software to make nice drawings. use whatever tools you have available. an architect's job is to order things andthis certainly extends to our drawings too. there's the organization of the line workon the page, the layout of the sheet, and there's also the order of information thatyou're depicting, the overall drawing hierarchy. each requires that you know exactly what you'retrying to communicate. now, i want to keep this simple for this tutorialso, i'll really just be going over how i draw
floor plans, but the principles apply to allthe different types of drawings. the goal of a floor plan is to show the relationshipof 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 toshow 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 decidejust what's important and leave out the rest. a floor plan is an overhead view of a horizontalcut through the building usually taken at
four feet above the floor level and of courseit's drawn to scale. and so, the first ordering principle is thatthe things you're cutting through - primarily the walls - should always be the heaviestlines on the page. so, key concept number one has to do withline weight and if that's a confusing term check the video in the cards for another tutorialwhere i describe exactly what that is and its importance. these drawings look this way because there'sa strong contrast between line weight: the very thin lines and the very thick ones. in cad, when we're drawing, we draw on differentlayers.
each layer is transparent and they stack togetherto form the drawing. you can control what you see and what youdon't by turning layers on and off. separating things into layers allows us tomodify our line weights - among other things - to quickly change what's being depictedas heavy and what's not. the process of design involves many changesso, keeping things organized on separate layers will allow you to change things efficiently. now, i like to keep things ultra-simple andfor this exercise especially i set up my layer groups by line weight and that's all. some architects and consultants use hundredsof layers and i suppose, in some cases, it
makes sense assuming you need that level ofcontrol, but i recommend starting with just a few. mine are all in a template file that i useto start new drawings and they're described very simply from heavy all the way to superfine. i also have a few additional layers whichare 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 needso i can work more quickly or in a less cluttered environment.
so, you may need more or less depending onthe type of work you do, but this is a nice simple place to start. any heavy lines you want to draw you'll puton the heavy layer, very thin ones on the light layer, or super fine ones on the superfine layer and so forth. in this way, it's a bullet-proof system forforcing you to pay attention to line weight, which is, in my opinion, the most importantthing in making your drawings graphically convincing. now, stick with me i promise not to get tootechnical. my cad program is set up to print these linesaccording to their color and color is assigned
by layer. so, if i'm drawing on the heavy layer theline is always white and white always corresponds with a certain line thickness. make sense? white is always associated with a certainthickness, which is set in - what my program autocad lt calls - the color table. but, all of that honestly is not really importantbecause whether or not you're using autocad you can simply change the thickness of theline 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 somethingaltogether different. by changing thickness, this adds even morecontrol over how much punch drawing has and what's nice is that it's clearly visible onthe screen as having a heavier line weight. now, if you start making really thick lineseverywhere just appreciate the fact that when you change the scale you're printing yourdrawing at, the lines will look thicker or thinner. so, just be aware of that. for the quarter inch scale residential floorplans i'm drawing here, i like to draw the outer edges of the exterior walls on the heavylayer and add a little extra punch by using
a one-inch thick polyline. if you make a template drawing with a varietyof thicknesses of lines in it you can adjust to whatever scale you're printing or workingat. now, to get into the real nitty gritty onthe floor plan drawing, exterior walls are assigned to the heavy layer and i show themas a one-inch thick polyline as i've already said. the medium layer is very close to the heavyone in weight and so i use it for accenting things like the top risers of stairs, or siteretaining walls, or site boulder groupings. i use the light layer for floor edges, doorslabs, window frames, counters, cabinetry,
and plumbing fixtures. and then, the door swings and like the windowsills, i put on the superfine layer. also on the superfine layer, i put all thewalls 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 dependingon how tall they are too. overhead lines are on the hidden layer andtext 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 sehere but using screened pen weights. i use everything from a 10% screen all theway up to an 80% screen. in my color table, remember that's the filethat tells my printer what thickness lines to print, i've assigned the colors 201 through208 different corresponding screened pen weights. so, anything assigned color 201 prints asa 10% screen, 202 is a 20% screen, and so on. and, for even more variety you might changethe line type too.
so, let's take a one inch thick polyline andassign it the 201 color and a hidden line type and now you have a thick dashed linewith 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 alouver vent in an elevation. you can also apply this technique to our nextkey concept which is: using hatches to add depth and detail. hatches are basically patterns that infillcertain 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 thescreened pen weights, you have nearly infinite options for creating depth and subtlety inyour drawings. i use hatches to shade the exterior walls,what architects call poche. in this drawing it's an 80% screen on a solidhatch. so, color 208 on the hatch layer. i use hatches to indicate materials like woodflooring, or concrete block, or tile patterns, and i also use them for shade and shadow tocall attention to something important in the drawing. on floor plans i use a variety of scales ofdot pattern hatches on say, descending stairs,
or as angled lines to show a partial heightwall, or cabinetry, or a countertop surface. i also use solid screened hatches on all myglazed surfaces on the exterior elevations from between 40 and 60% screen. i use them in the tree backgrounds - the onesyou see here in the elevation drawings. i basically use them everywhere i can becausethey help call attention to things that i think are important and they also add a softnessto the drawing that i think looks - i don't know – like, painterly i guess. now, i talked about this in the q&a videorecently about how to get a feel for room dimensions, but by adding furniture, scalefigures, cars, trees, and other elements to
indicate scale, you'll introduce a real sensethat your architecture is meant to be inhabited. doing this also ensures you're accommodatingthe regular elements your end users will need to functionally use the architecture as well. knowing your client wants to use an 8-footsofa, for example, will help you locate the floor outlets nearby and ensure it's not obstructinga door swing. it's okay if you're missing this informationearly on and you're working on conceptual plans, but i like to begin with at least someidea 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, eachof these materials has a thickness and when you start to turn corners and add jogs, orif you begin intersecting different buildings or surfaces, knowing what those materialsare becomes really important when you're drawing. in the end, your floor plan can be as generalor as detailed as you like, but the more detail you imbue your drawing with, the more usefula tool it will be later on when you're drawing column details, or figuring out how the glazedwall meets the concrete retaining wall. now, bim programs and other cad programs havedifferent ways of doing this, you can actually setup entire wall assemblies so that you'redrawing one line and it's plotting the entire wall thickness and material assembly for youas you go along.
autocad lt is the most basic of 2d draftingcad programs so, i'm really keeping this basic here. now, for our squid cove project, we actuallystarted with a double two-by-four stud wall on the exterior spaced apart to prevent thermalbridging. so, i offset the outer perimeter by threeand a half inches, which is the width of a 2x4 wall and then another quarter inch forthe thermal break, and then another three and a half for the inner stud wall. then, i offset the interior finish thicknessof half inch for the gypsum wallboard, and then on the outside a half an inch for theexterior sheathing, and another inch for the
exterior shingled walls. now, along the way as the pricing came backfor the double two-by-four wall system it turned out it was a lot more expensive thanwe anticipated. so, we had to change it back to two by sixwalls now, because windows take a long time to fabricate, this change actually happenedafter 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 interiorcorners to resolve and knowing the actual systems and sizes of everything around themallowed us to design the trim around the windows
that not only matched the detailing of therest 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 linework that makes the contrast between thick and really pop. lastly, sort of the icing on the cake, wehave annotations. now, annotations round out the informationyou'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 annotationsare a part of another ordering system and also something that they need to pay attentionto, 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, whateveryou choose. i like the red because it's easy to pointto a note and say, “hey it's noted in red,†it's really hard to miss, right? annotations describe things that you're notable to draw, they reference other drawings, and details, and should all be on the textlayer so you can turn them on and off as needed
for presentation, or while you're making otherchanges to the plan. annotations grow over time, they'll be basicat first, things like room labels, and then they'll get progressively more numerous asyou 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 pseudohand lettering fonts should be fine. now, you'll know you've done all this correctlywhen 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 themreally contrasty for best effect. now, if i've helped you in any way pleasedo smash that like button below and let me know your suggestions for future videos inthe comments.
what are you guys struggling with right now? appreciate you guys as always, see you againnext time. cheers!