Your architect just sent you drawings. Here’s how to read them:
Plans, elevations, sections - it can feel overwhelming. But once you know what you’re looking at, drawings become one of the most powerful tools you have to shape your future home.
Every set of plans includes these three views:
FLOOR PLAN: Bird’s-eye slice at 1m height - shows rooms, walls, doors, windows, and flow.
ELEVATION: Flat, straight-on view of each exterior face - shows height, cladding, and roofline.
SECTION: A vertical slice through the building - reveals ceiling heights and how spaces connect.
The jargon you’ll definitely encounter:
FFL: Finished floor level - the height of your floor once complete, not the raw slab.
STUD HEIGHT: Floor to ceiling distance. Standard NZ is 2.4m; many modern homes run 2.7m+.
SETBACK: Minimum distance your home must sit from a boundary per council rules.
NTS: Not to scale - illustrative only, don’t take measurements from it.
Three ways to engage more deeply with your design:
WHERE IS NORTH?: Find north on the plan and think about how light moves through your living spaces across the day - it’s one of the best things to get right early.
WALK THROUGH THE DOOR SWINGS: Check they work for how you’ll actually move through the home. Door positions are easy to adjust at the design stage - and satisfying to get exactly right.
TAPE OUT THE ROOMS: Grab a tape measure and mark the dimensions on your floor at home. Seeing the real scale makes everything click.