What is a section?

Hi Everyone,

It was great meeting you all on Monday. A few of you have contacted me to clarify that all the drawings you are doing this week are sections and get some feedback on what is required in making a section.

So firstly, yes all 18 of the drawings you are doing this week are sections. As to what a section is; a section is "a cut through the body of a building, perpendicular to the horizon line. A section drawing is one that shows a vertical cut transecting, typically along a primary axis, an object or building."

I think the easiest way to start thinking about a section is to look at the space you are in right now and imagine what it would be like if you cut away that space perpendicular to the ground floor and then try and draw it. You will have a floor, walls, ceiling and other elements represented in the section - they will vary depending on where you decide to cut through, by cutting different elements that will inturn impact what is shown in the section.

I think the best way to understand sections is to watch and try. Watch the video below for a basic introduction to sections, the first three minutes are particularly relevant to your first assessment.

I picked this video for the way Themodmin creates sections based entirely on ideas, rather than solely based on a space - this has some parallells to your first assessment. Your sections do not need details like structure yet, at this point we are interested in how you translate an idea to an architectural drawing. I will go over this in more detail in the next post.