The general arrangement drawing
2.19 Diagrammatic cross-section through a multi-storeyed building. Virtually all the information it gives may be
conveyed more fully and intelligibly by other means. The frame will be built from the structural engineer’s drawings; the
doors will be manufactured from information to which the joiner is directed from the appropriate schedule; they will be
installed in positions located on the floor plans; the construction of the external walls will be found on strip sections
amplified as necessary by larger scale details. A section such as that shown has its functions but they are more likely
to be advisory—i.e. letting the contractor see the sort of building he is embarking upon, rather than directly instructing
him what to build and where to build it
reduces the cross-section through a multi-storeyed
building to a diagrammatic simplicity, will explain why.
Most of it is irrelevant to our understanding. The
internal elevations of those rooms which are exposed
by the section cut are not a very suitable medium
for describing, for example, wall finishes, since the
other three walls are not shown. It is true that we are
shown the positions of doors in those walls but
these are shown, and indeed dimensioned, much
more comprehensively on the respective floor plans.The heights of internal door frames may be derived
whenever the section line passes through an internal
wall coincident with a door opening, but the height of
the frame may be obtained more readily from the