How to read site plans By Shabnam Arab

How to read Site Plans

The site plan is basically a large scale drawing that shows the full extent of the site showing a building footprint, travel ways, parking, landscaping and garden elements. In this article, you’ll get to know more about the basic requirements for a site plan in construction.

A site plan is a document that specifically maps out the part of the building site to scale. There are two main types of site plans listed below: Existing site plan – This site plan shows the site in its present state. Proposed site plan – The proposed site plan shows what’s going to change, and how the site will appear once the construction complete.

What’s on a site plan?

The fundamental concept behind a site plan is to show:

• the form of the site
• the size of the site - shown using a scale
• the orientation of the north
• the geographical location of the site
• the perfect position of things like trees or rocks
• any modifications in height (shown as contour lines)
• any easements, rights of carriage, driveways, existing stormwater drainage etc.
• the actual location and footprint of every existing structure
• any relevant options that come with the location surrounding your building site - particularly things that might affect usage of the site or construction

What do all those small symbols and figures mean?

While a lot of what’s on a site plan is pretty self-explanatory and also the relevant parts are often clearly labeled, there is an awful amount of fine detail provided that can certainly glide beyond the untrained eye.

Everything right down to the forms and thicknesses associated with the lines, the directions of arrows, small abbreviations and also the symbols and markings holds some significance and certainly will communicate specific information regarding the site.

Orientation and scale

All plans should feature a north point to show the orientation of the diagram – and if possible, it is better for a number of diagrams being used (e.g. site plans, floor plans, drainage plans etc.) to be oriented in the same manner to avoid any unnecessary distress.
Scale is usually depicted on plans using a written ratio (e.g. Scale 1:100), along with a block or granulated scale, which provides a graphical representation of sizes and distances as they’re shown.

Callouts and cross references

The degree of detail shown on a site plan is dependent upon what can relatively be drawn within the scale of the drawing. Where additional detail is needed, it is normally shown by using a crossreference to a separate diagram. There are few different types of references that can be used, each of which indicates a different type of detail or drawing.