What is a Floor Plan Symbol?
As a client or a novice in the field of interior design, you may get lost in the sheer amount of architectural symbols, texts and numbers you see on an architectural plan. It could appear daunting to understand these symbols precisely. But it would help if you learned about them so that no miscommunication arises between you and the people you work for and with.

It could also be beneficial to you, as a homeowner, are dealing directly with a contractor and view construction drawings or a set of blueprints of your home design. Knowing how to read a floor plan can help you understand what you need and how your idea would look in reality.
Types of Floor Plan Symbols
To start understanding a floor plan, you must learn and understand the standard symbols that you will see in all projects. Following is a list of standardised characters for day to day use.

1. Compass Symbols
This symbol will help you navigate through the floor plan and show you the property’s orientation concerning the cardinal directions. It is mainly represented by a circle with a north arrow pointing towards the north.



2. Door Symbols
The doors are annotated by a large gap between the walls and a curved line that shows the direction of the swing. In addition, the path traced by the swing is shown in a dotted line showing the clear area the door would cover. However, there are different ways to show a door depending on the type of door that is to be installed.

For typical triple hinge door swings, the curved line makes a quarter circle arc indicating the extent of the swing (up to 90 degrees).

3. Window Symbols
Windows are shown as part of the walls. They are symbolised by an empty rectangle inserted into a wall with a solid hatch.

Sliding windows are symbolised by three parallel rectangles representing each sliding window panel joined at the edges below the other.


4. Stair Symbols
Like most symbols, staircases are seen parallel from the plan view. Simply put, they look like a series of rectangles attached from side to side. The rectangles can change to other geometric shapes depending on the design of the actual staircase.
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