WORKING DRAWINGS HANDBOOK, Fourth Edition

The structure of information

Problems of communication

The Handbook of Architectural Practice and
Management(published by the Royal Institute of British
Architects) points out, ‘As with all technical
communication, the user’s needs are the primary
consideration’. Whoever the user is—and the users of a
set of drawings will be many and various—he has the
right to expect that the information given to him will be:

 an accurate record of the designer’s intentions
 clearly expressed and easily understood

 comprehensive and sufficiently detailed for its

purpose

 easily retrievable from the mass of other information

with which, inevitably, it will be combined.

It is the purpose of this book to consider these four

requirements in detail and hopefully to propose

techniques for satisfying them.

There is a fifth and fundamental requirement, of course.

The information conveyed must be technically sound;

if this is not the case then all the careful draughting and

1.1 Hellman’s view of the problem