WHAT ARE SECTIONS IN INTERIOR DESIGN? A section represents a vertical plane which is cut through an object, these are different to elevations because it shows two or more rooms/voids and helps you see the thickness of the walls. They usually show more furniture, however you need to take into account when objects are further away from a wall and show the measurements.
Sections can illustrate information which can’t be understood from a normal plan or elevation, such as:
- Relationship between different levels in a building.
- Staircases
- Lift shafts
- Suspended ceilings
- Light features
- Heights of elements
When you have a complete set of technical drawings (plans, elevations and sections), it will allow you to understand the design as a space, this helps for when you do not have any visuals or models. Sections are sometimes a very crucial part of presentations, in this case they may be ‘rendered’. By rendered I mean coloured in showing different texture and materials.
To begin practicing sections I chose to look at a simple mug, I started off by drawing a plan and elevation for it. This would help me understand the way in which I’d need to draw the section, I worked with a scale of 1:1 @ A3. Because the mug was half full with coffee I needed to show this on the section.
My second task was more complicated and had slightly more detail to it, working from the measurements I had been given I needed to draw a plan for the room, I worked with a of 1:100 @ A3, allowing for a more detail view. The plan took me fairly quick as I’m rather comfortable with drawing them. However I then needed to work with my plan to create a section, using the same scale I began to sketch. Because my plan was the same scale I was able to use this as a reference for some measurements. I finally got the hang of this task and had completed my first section of an interior.
The third and final task was a more detailed plan which had been done on the computer. To start drawing my section for this particular one I needed to decide where the section was going to start from, I sliced the plan in half inside my head and started working. This particular task was harder as it showed two voids and had a lot more detail than the previous two I had done. I found that once I had the initial measurements down it allowed me to begin adding in all the more complex details (such as the stairs). Once I’d completed the section drawing I wanted to incorporate a scale size figure to show the way a human would fit within the space, by doing this it allowed myself to show the proportions within the interior.
Peta-Louise Krog 
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