An elevation drawing is a flat, straight-on view of a building’s vertical surface, showing exactly what you’d see if you stood directly in front of it and looked at it head-on. It captures the height, shape, and visual details of a wall, whether that’s the exterior facade of a house or a single interior wall in a kitchen. Elevation drawings are one of the three core types of architectural drawings, alongside floor plans (which look down from above) and sections (which slice through a building to reveal what’s inside).
How Elevations Differ From Plans and Sections
The easiest way to understand an elevation is to compare it to the other two main drawing types. A floor plan is a horizontal slice through a building, viewed from above, showing the layout of rooms, doors, and walls. A section is a vertical slice that cuts through the building, exposing the internal structure, everything from the foundation to the roof framing. An elevation is also a vertical view, but it doesn’t cut through anything. It shows the surface as it appears from the outside, like a photograph flattened into a technical drawing.
Think of it this way: if you took a knife and cut a building in half, the exposed inside face is a section. If you just stood across the street and drew what you saw, that’s an elevation. When drawn correctly, all three types of drawings correspond to each other, so a window shown on the floor plan will appear at the correct position and height on the elevation.
Exterior vs. Interior Elevations
There are two broad categories of elevation drawings, and they serve different purposes.
Exterior elevations show the outside faces of a building. A typical set of construction documents includes four of them: front, back, left side, and right side. These drawings communicate the overall look of the building, including window placement, door types, roofline shape, and the materials used on the facade (brick, siding, stucco, and so on). They’re what most people picture when they hear “elevation drawing.”
Interior elevations zoom in on individual walls inside a room. You’ll find these most often for spaces with a lot of custom design work, like kitchens and bathrooms. They show exactly where cabinets, countertops, appliances, fixtures, and tile will go on a given wall. If you’re remodeling a bathroom and want to see how the vanity, mirror, and sconces will look together, the interior elevation is where that information lives.
What an Elevation Drawing Includes
Elevation drawings pack a surprising amount of information into a single view. At a glance, you’ll typically see:
- Material callouts: A legend on the drawing identifies what each surface is made of. Small marks or symbols on the elevation reference this legend, so you can tell where brick transitions to metal panel or where a different type of exterior finish begins.
- Window and door callouts: Each opening is labeled with a tag that links to a schedule listing its exact size, type, and specifications.
- Vertical height markers: Along one side of the drawing, you’ll see horizontal lines marking finished floor levels, roof height, and other key datums. These are noted as elevations above a reference point, often mean sea level. For example, a drawing might show the finished first floor at 12 feet above sea level and the roof at 25 feet.
- Section references: Small symbols on the elevation point you to other pages in the drawing set where you can see a cross-section cut through that part of the building. These work like hyperlinks in a document, connecting related views.
- Roof slopes and overhangs: The pitch of the roof, the depth of eaves, and the profile of any parapets are all visible on the elevation.
In some cases, elevations also call out special conditions like expansion joints, flood elevation requirements, or alignment relationships between elements. A note might specify, for instance, that the center of a row of windows aligns with the center of openings on the floor below.
Reading the Symbols
Elevation drawings use a standardized set of symbols that show up across all architectural drawings. The most common ones you’ll encounter are section markers, which look like a circle with a number and sheet reference inside. If you see one on an elevation, it’s telling you that a more detailed cut-through view of that area exists on another page. The number inside tells you which image on that page, and the sheet number tells you where to find it.
Building sections use a larger version of this symbol, connected by a line showing where the cut happens. Wall sections use a smaller version and only cut through a portion of the building, usually one wall and the floors and roof connected to it. Interior elevation markers look different: a circle inside a rotated square (diamond shape), with numbers or letters at each corner pointing to the four wall elevations of that room.
Scale and Proportions
Every elevation drawing is produced at a specific scale, meaning everything on the page is shrunk by a consistent ratio. For residential and smaller commercial projects, elevations are commonly drawn at 1:50 or 1:100 in metric units. At 1:100, one centimeter on paper equals one meter in real life. Larger site-level views might use 1:200 or even 1:500. In imperial measurements, common scales include 1/4 inch equals 1 foot for detailed views and 1/8 inch equals 1 foot for larger buildings.
The scale is always noted on the drawing, usually directly below the title. If you need to check a dimension that isn’t explicitly called out, you can use a scale ruler to measure directly off the paper, though noted dimensions always take priority over scaled measurements.
How Elevations Are Created Today
Traditionally, architects drew elevations by hand, projecting vertical information from the floor plan using drafting tools. This was time-consuming and error-prone, since any change to the plan meant manually updating every related elevation.
Modern architectural practice relies on Building Information Modeling (BIM) software. In BIM, the architect builds a three-dimensional digital model of the entire building. Elevation views are generated automatically from this model. The software creates horizontal reference lines called “levels” that define each floor height, the roof, and features like a parapet top. When the architect changes a window size or moves a wall in the 3D model, every elevation, plan, and section updates automatically.
Setting up elevations in BIM involves defining these levels precisely. An architect might set Level One at ground height, Level Two at 14 feet, the roof at 25 feet, and then fine-tune each one based on the design. The software prompts you to rename the corresponding views so they stay organized, which matters on large projects where dozens of elevation views can accumulate quickly. Accuracy is checked by switching between different elevation views and confirming that levels, grid lines, and building elements all align.
Why Elevations Matter in Practice
If you’re building a home, renovating a kitchen, or reviewing plans for an addition, the elevation drawings are where you’ll confirm how the finished result will actually look. Floor plans tell you the layout, but they can’t show you whether the windows are proportioned well, whether the roofline feels right, or whether the kitchen cabinets will crowd the range hood. Elevations answer those visual and spatial questions.
They’re also essential for regulatory approval. Most building departments require exterior elevations as part of a permit application, since zoning codes often regulate building height, facade materials, and the overall appearance of structures in a neighborhood. The vertical height markers on the drawing are what officials use to verify compliance with height limits and, in flood-prone areas, minimum elevation requirements above the base flood level.
For contractors, elevations are working documents. They use the material callouts to order the right products, the height markers to set forms and framing at the correct levels, and the section references to find the construction details they need for complex assemblies. A well-drawn elevation ties the entire set of construction documents together, linking the bird’s-eye view of the plan to the fine-grained detail of wall sections and material specifications.