Drawing Types

Use two bell peppers to investigate the design of an object. Structurally, the bell pepper has similarities to the structure of a home. When cut in half horizontally the bell pepper exposes the plan of the outer skin. This is similar to the walls of your home. When cut down the middle vertically, you make a section through the pepper. Now look at the side(s) of the pepper. That is the elevation. Draw the three viewpoints. First dip the pepper pieces in paint and press onto plain paper. Next, draw the plan, section and elevation of the pepper. Experiment with other fruits and vegetables, always distinguishing the wall or skin of the fruit from its interior view and material.

…Reveal the Inside!

Use plan, section and elevation to notate a scale drawing of a favorite chair. Print the 1" x 1" grid paper. Use the scale of 3 inches on the paper equals 1 foot of the full size. Title your drawing, Views of a Chair. Write on the top right of the paper: Scale: 3"=1’-0". Measure a chair making sketches in your journal of its height, width, length,etc. Measure sizes of all of its parts. Using gridded paper or an architectural scale, create a drawing of the plan, section and elevation of the chair. Compare your plan and elevation with the actual chair. Are the proportions the same? Do the parts look like they belong to the whole? Drawing the section requires cutting through the chair in your mind’s eye. Are the legs of the chair solid or hollow? Is there upholstery on the chair or padding? Try to understand the dimensions. Your section can be drawn over your elevation. Show the parts that you cut through as solid , dark thicknesses.

Submit your simultaneous views of your chair!

Where are there lighthouses near your town or school? Is there one on a river or a lakefront? Light houses have served as beacons to travelers for centuries and still beam a bright welcome or warning to boats approaching on the water. Can you find and draw lighthouse plans, sections and elevations?

In this activity you will research and analyze a 20th century house. Do research to find photographs, models, and drawings of a contemporary house. Then draw floor plans, elevations and sections of a 20th century contemporary house. Spend an hour or two looking at 20th century homes. Select from the list below (or find a modern house you would like to draw) and prepare a floor plan and elevation(s) to fit on one 11 x 17 vertical or horizontal paper. You will need drawing pencils (3 different lead weights), a straight edge, a triangle and scale.

Richard Neutra, Desert House (Kaufmann House)
Rudolph Schindler, Lovell Beach, King’s Road House
Pierre Charreau, The Maison du Verre (Glass House)
C.F.A. Voysey, ChorleyWood
Mario Botta (Ticino house)
Phillip Johnson’s Glass House
Le Corbiusier’s Villa Savoye, Maison Citrohan, Weissnehofseidlung house
Walter Gropius Bauhaus Master’s Housing
Mies van Der Rohe, Farnesworth House, Tugenhat House
Gerrit Reitveld, Schroeder House
Glenn Murcott House
Tadao Ando House
Buckminster Fuller’s Dyna-House
Rae and Charles Eames House
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Jacobs I House, Willits House, Robie House
Robert Venturi, Vanna Venturi House
Alvar Aalto, Villa Mairea
, Buckminster Fuller, DiMaxion House
Charles Rennie Macintosh
Richard Meier, Douglas House
Michael Graves, Hanselmann House
Otto Wagner House
Peter Behrens House
Adolf Loos Villa

Watch Drawing a Floor Plan.
Watch Draw an Elevation

Draft like an architect!

In this activity, you will research a famous building online. Look for information about the plan, elevations and sections. Once you find them, look at how they are drawn. Often there are two or more line weights or thicknesses to show width of walls and structure. Just like the pepper, you can draw buildings as they appear in the front. But you can also draw buildings in plan. Plans show the arrangements and sizes of spaces. Plans also show how to get into and move through a building. Lastly, plans show us the structure of the building. Sections reveal interior volumes and shapes of those volumes. FInd a famous building and draw its plan, a section and an elevation.

Record history and reveal the inner chambers of the past!