Three views can show the same small design but convey different things. A plan shows the layout as if we were looking from above. A section cuts the design to show height, levels, thickness, and interior relationships. An elevation looks at one side and shows the face of a wall, a façade, or the edge of a room. Mixing these views makes architecture more confusing. Separating them makes them easier to use.
The plan is likely the first drawing that people see, because it shows location. The walls, doors, windows, stairs, furniture areas, and movement routes are located on a floor. This makes the plan a useful drawing for studying room adjacency or circulation. We turn to a plan to ask: Does the entry lead to the main area? Does a door swing overlap a table? Do rooms communicate? The plan is better for discussing location rather than height.
A section discusses a different kind of question. A slice through a room or a building allows us to see floor level, ceiling height, stair rise, window height, wall thickness, and vertical relationships between spaces. A plan might show where the stair is, but it is a section that allows us to understand the climb. A plan might show a window on a wall, but a section allows us to discuss a window’s relationship to height, to depth, or to a certain quality of daylight.
The elevation is a more direct, flatter view than a section. It shows the appearance of a wall or exterior face when seen from the front. This is useful when thinking about the placement of windows or doors, the rhythm of the façade, or proportion. A room’s elevation can be helpful in checking the balance of shelves, openings, panels, or furniture height. While it is not as useful as a plan for discussing the route through a room or as useful as a section to show the cut depth of an object, the elevation is still useful in thinking about a visible surface or design’s face.
Consider this exercise: find one simple space and draw all three of these drawings. Use one small space, not a whole building. Begin with a sketch of the floor plan showing the walls, doors, and windows and the key areas of furniture. Draw a section through one line and show everything seen in the cut. Finally, draw an elevation of a wall that has a significant or central window, door, or set of built-ins. Keep the drawings rough, but ensure each drawing can discuss its own topic.
The mistake we make is asking one drawing to do the work of all three. The plan becomes an attempt to describe height and location, furniture and façade. We turn a section into a decorative drawing rather than a tool to examine a cut through space. The elevation gets confused with a perspective view. Try to be more precise by deciding what topic a drawing addresses and adding no more than is necessary. If you are discussing location, choose a plan. If you are discussing height and vertical relationships, choose a section. If you are discussing the front of a wall, choose an elevation.
These three views are also a way of checking your design work. When a floor plan makes sense, but a section exposes a ceiling or window problem, you need another pass at your design. When an elevation looks balanced but a plan does not, we need a better route. If a section discusses an interesting design idea, a plan that can support this through a clear route and readable areas will make that idea more effective. As these three views start to talk to each other, we will move toward better early design thinking.