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UNDERSTANDING SCALES AND SCALE DRAWINGS

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Understanding the concept of

architectural scales and scale drawings
Table of Contents 

1. Understanding the concept of architectural scales and scale

drawings
1.1. Working with scales for architectural representation
1.2. What scale should I use?
1.2.1. Location Plan and Key Plans
1.2.2. Site Plans, Sketch schemes etc
1.2.3. Plan drawings – floor plans, elevations, sections
1.2.4. Room plans, interior elevations
1.2.5. Component / detail drawings
1.3. Working out the scale
1.4. How to use a scale ruler
1.5. How to scale a drawing up or down
1.6. Paper size scales and magnification
1.6.1. How to convert paper sizes?
 1.7. Working with paper sizes
1.8. Working with scales digitally
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Scale drawings allow us to accurately represent sites, spaces,

buildings and details to a smaller or more practical size than the
original.

When a drawing is described as ‘to scale’, it means that each element

in that drawing is in the same proportion, related to the real or
proposed thing – it is smaller or indeed larger by a particular
percentage. 

If something is ‘drawn to scale’ we expect that it has been drawn, or

printed, to a common scale that is used as standard in the
construction industry. As we gain a better understanding of scale,
we can view a drawing in a particular scale and instantly recognise
and understand the spaces, zones and gain a quick understanding of
the existing or proposed spatial relationships. 

In the real world, one meter is equal to one meter.  A drawing at a

scale of 1:10 means that the object is 10 times smaller than in real
life scale 1:1. You could also say, 1 unit in the drawing is equal to 10
units in real life.

As the numbers in the scale get bigger, i.e. 1:50 – 1:200, the
elements in the drawing actually get smaller. This is because in a
drawing at 1:50 there is 1 unit for every 50 unit in real life. A drawing
of 1:200 is representing 200 units for every one unit – and therefore
is showing the elements smaller than the 1:50 drawing.

It is worth noting that scale drawings represent the same units. So, if
a drawing is at 1:50 in cm, 1cm in the drawing will be equal to 50cm
in real life. Similarly, if a drawing is in mm, at 1:200 – one mm unit in
the drawing will represent 200mm in real life.
 

The image above shows an example of a drawing set with different

scales to demonstrate different aspects of the design. (cad drawing
courtesy of bibliocad.com). You may want to represent a site plan at
a scale of 1:500, but perhaps show floor plans at 1:100 for example.

Working with scales for architectural

representation
 

In architecture, we use a collection of standard scales to represent

our designs. For example, it is common practice to produce floor
plans at a scale of 1:100 (dependent on size of project and paper).
Once you gain an understanding of scales, it is easy to understand
which scale is most suited to which type of drawing. 
Scale bar blocks courtesy of cad-blocks.co.uk.

These scale bars show what one unit represents at different scales.

The general requirement of a scaled drawing is to convey the

relevant information clearly with the required level of detail. If you
are working in practice there will often be office standards. For
example, they may only use layout sheets of either A3 or A1 –
depending on the scale of the project and information that is being
represented. As a student, you need to make these decisions based
on industry standard. It is always best to use a ’round’ scale, i.e., one
of the scales mentioned below, and not make up your own.

What scale should I use?

 
The following looks at the recommended scales for architectural use
in the metric system. The chosen scale and paper size will often
depend on the size of site/design of each individual project.
 
Location Plan and Key Plans
 
1:1250 (often requested by planners)
1:1000
1:500
 
Site Plans, Sketch schemes etc
 
1:200
1:100
 
Plan drawings – floor plans, elevations, sections
 
1:100
1:50
 
Room plans, interior elevations
 
1:20
 
Component / detail drawings
 
1:10
1:5
 
 
Working out the scale
 
A scale is shown as a ratio, for example 1:100. A drawing at a scale of
1:100 means that the object is 100 times smaller than in real life
scale 1:1. You could also say, 1 unit in the drawing is equal to 100
units in real life. 

So, if we were drawing a table that measured 100cm wide by 200cm

long at a scale of 1:50, you would draw the table 2cm wide by 4cm
long on your piece of paper. This is worked out by dividing the real
life size (100cm) by 50 (1:50 scale). This gives you a result of 2cm.
For the length of the table we divide 200cm by 50 to get a result of
4cm. 
Of course, it is not necessary to calculate the required
measurements when you draw. You can either use a scale ruler to
hand draw your plans, or software such as Revit, AutoCAD,
ArchiCAD that will allow you to present your drawings at any scale
and easily switch between scales as required. 

How to use a scale ruler

 

A scale ruler is a tool that architects, engineers and designers use to

draw their designs at an appropriate scale that it fits on a piece of
paper and is in proportion to accurately convey the scheme. The
scale ruler comes in different shapes, flat or triangular but they all
provide sets of graduated numbered spaces, that establishes
a proportion of one unit to the specified unit, i.e. different scales. As
an example, the ruler I have in front of me now has the following
scales; 1:1, 1:100, 1:20, 1:200, 1:5, 1:500, 1:1250, 1:2500. 

Scale rules have varying number of scales on them, depending

on their intended use. Using a scale rule is pretty easy when you
know how. 

When you are drawing a plan, you select the scale you intend to use
by turn the ruler to the appropriate side. You can then draw the line
to the desired measurement using the scale ruler. For example, if you
have select to draw a 5m wall at 1:100, you would select your 1:100
side of the ruler, and draw 5 units along the ruler, as each unit
represents 1m. 
When you are reading plans, you establish the scale of the drawing
or plans, and select that scale on your ruler, you are then able to
measure the lines using the correct scale. 

How to scale a drawing up or down

 

Let’s look at converting a scale drawing to a different scale. You can

considering changing the scale of a drawing by a decimal factor or by
a percentage. For example, lets imagine we have a drawing at 1:50,
but we want amend the scale, to show that drawing at 1:200. A
drawing at 1:200 is 4 times larger than a drawing at 1:50, therefore
we would need to increase the size of the drawing 4 x. The table
below demonstrates the different scale factors required to convert a
scale up or down.
 

Table: Converting scales up or down

Being able to scale drawings up and down using percentages has

become very useful too. Working in Adobe (Photoshop, InDesign
etc), you will find you can adjust the size of an object using a
percentage, which is great if you are wanting to accurately scale a
drawing up or down while working in photoshop while maintaining a
precise scale. 

Lets imagine you are working on a drawing that you have imported
into an A4 sized photoshop document. The drawing you have
imported does not quite fit at its current scale of 1:50, so you will
need to reduce the scale in order to squeeze the image onto the
page, while maintaining an accurate scale. By using the table below,
we can see that to convert from a scale of 1:50, down to 1:100 we
would need to reduce the drawing by 50%. To do this we would make
sure the dimension ratios of the image are locked, and proceed to
type 50% into the size box. 

Obviously this is a simple example but you get the idea. The table
below provides the basic conversion percentages to scale a drawing
up or down using the standard metric scales. 

Table: Converting scales up or down

Paper size scales and magnification

 

We can now look at amending paper size scales and magnification.

There are times when you may have a drawing on an A4 piece of
paper, that you need to scale up to an A3 piece of paper for example.
Let’s imagine you were needing to trace this drawing so would use a
photocopier to scale the drawing up to the necessary size. 

 
How to convert paper sizes?
 

To convert the paper size you can use the percentages in the table
below. Note that these percentages do not correspond to the scale
factors. So, if you scale or magnify a paper size accurately, it does not
mean that you will retain an accurate (or standard) scale of the
drawing. So, if you want to increase the scale of a drawing using a
photocopier, but want to increase it to a standard scale (1:10 for
example) then you must use the percentage factors for converting
scale. If it is just the paper size you wish to change, then you can use
the paper size converter. I hope that makes sense. 

Table: Converting paper sizes and magnification factors

Working with paper sizes

When working with ISO paper layouts we know that the standard
size of paper was developed on the basis of an area of 1m2, divided
according to the ratio of the sides.

This basic format of 1m2 then forms the basis for all other smaller
sizes. All A sized paper is either halving or doubling the basic format.

XxY=1

Below is a list of all the A paper sizes.

Working with scales digitally
 

One of the great things about using digital drafting software is that
you can produce drawings as multiple scales from one single
drawing. Programs such as Revit, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD and many
more, allow you to draw up your designs at 1:1 scale, that is real life
size, and produce drawings or plots of these designs at an
appropriate scale for the paper size you have selected. 

 
When working in CAD you can let the software do some of the hard
work for you by making use of the paper space option to create
layouts. On your layout sheet you are then able to create viewports
which feature your drawing at the required scale. I have recorded a
couple of tutorials that will help with setting up drawings for
printing at appropriate scales.

Quick CAD Tips | Layouts

Quick CAD Tips | How to print

I
I have also recorded a tutorial that explains how to scale a drawing in
cad. This is useful if you have imported a drawing at a different scale.

Quick CAD Tips | How to scale a drawing

You can download my dynamic scale bar cad blocks here:

 
https://www.firstinarchitecture.co.uk/fia-free-cad-block-dynamic-
scale-bar/
You can download a handy pdf of this post by clicking the download
button below!

Click here to download!

 Hope you find this useful, if you have any questions, or there is
something else you would like to know about, please drop me an
emaill (emma@firstinarchitecture.co.uk) or comment below
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14 Comments
Caleb Frost on June 11, 2018 at 7:53 pm

I have a question, about scaling. I have a 2D site drawing

drawing 1:1. The site drawing is referenced on my cover
sheet. The cover sheet is set to print at 1/4″ = 1′ but I
want the scale of the site plan to be 1″ = 30′. I can’t
figure out what the one scale factor is that I can use to
scale the 1:1 drawing by to get it to come in to the cover
sheet at the right scale.

Reply

Michael on March 23, 2019 at 10:05 am

I have a question,I’m trying to draw a floor plan to scale

of 1:50,but the measurement in the floor plan does not
express if it is in meter, millimeter etc.. it only give the
numbers like total length of the plan 1800, door length
90 etc.. how to draw this plan?

Reply

Emma on March 25, 2019 at 6:13 am

If the plan tells you the door width, you can work
out what units the plan it in. You know the
standard door width generally, is around 900mm –
 so it sounds like your plan could be in centimetres
if it is saying the door width is 90…

Reply

ehsan on February 1, 2020 at 11:49 pm

Hi there,

i have a CAD drawing that is drawn in Meters (CAD Unit

is meter)

my page on paper space is on “ISO A1″ 841X594,. i was

hoping to plot to 1:50 for equivalent of 1′ = 1/4” but the
drawing is as small as a dot.

i watched a youtube video that explained to do a custom

plot scale since my drawing is drawn in meters and the
CAD unit is in meter. custom plot 1paper unit to 0.05
drawing unit. when i did that visually the drawing seems
okay.

i have some questions:

– first of all is this a correct scale?

– if i am writing the scale under my drawing, what do i

put there? 1 : 0.05 ?

Reply

Emma on February 3, 2020 at 6:19 am

The easiest thing to do would be to scale the cad

drawing up to millimetres, this way the video will
 make more sense as you work through it. When
you then enter the scale in the custom plot area it
will be 1:50 and you will write 1:50 under your
drawing. To scale the drawing, change the units of
the drawing to milimeters first, this is in Tools.
Check to see if the drawing lines are still in metres,
if they are – Then go into your paper space, select
all, type SCALE, ref point 0,0,0 and scale factor
1000. Hopefully this will work. Good luck .

Reply

Sal Romano on March 23, 2020 at 6:51 pm

Hi I have various pdf vehicle drawings at various scales

and they all need to be at the scale of 1:50. How do I
convert in scale percentage from 1:15 to 1:50 scale. 1:35
to 1:50 and 1:10 to 1:50 I’m bringing in the pdf drawings
into illustrator and then tracing them so they can all be
viewed in at the same proportional scale

Reply

Mohamed Nassar on September 6, 2020 at 9:41 am

thank but i can’t download this pdf for scales

Reply

Ed on October 14, 2020 at 11:29 am

Hello,

I’ve got a question regarding the scale on a view port.

The scale shows 150 to 1. When l change it to 1:50 which
is the scale that I normally use, the drawing becomes
very tiny that I cant see anything. Any advise?

Regards,

Ed

Reply

Emma on October 14, 2020 at 3:40 pm

Hi Ed, is the drawing in the model space drawn at a

scale of 1:1?

Reply

Colby on October 20, 2020 at 3:58 am

Hi,

I have a scale of 1:200 m using the scale ruler. My

professor told me to show the computations I did to
arrive at my chosen scale factor. Since it is my first time
making a lay-out, I am not familiar about it. How can I
show my computations?

Reply

Karl Griffith on January 8, 2021 at 12:01 pm

What would the scale be on A1 if the original was 1:200
on A0?

Reply

Siyabulela on May 6, 2021 at 6:43 pm

the floor of a school hall is 40m long and 20 m wide draw

scaled diagram in a scale of 1:50

Reply

Jade on May 10, 2021 at 5:07 pm

Hi emma. Im studying garden design but not getting the

scale ruler. I assumed the ruler was converting it all for
you. So 1 metre in reality i was using the 1 marker on
1:50 as thought it was already done. But a 60cm plant in
1:50 ive been told is 120cm on the ruler. Any scale ruler
for idiots explanation plse as im now not getting what
each whole number represents on each scale side.

Reply

Emma on May 11, 2021 at 7:29 am

Hi Jade, I think you were right the first time. The

ruler does the conversion for you. So, if you have a
drawing and it is at a scale of 1:50. You measure
your plant and it is at the 1 mark on your 1:50 ruler,
the plant is 1m. Likewise, if you want to draw a
 3meter line at a scale of 1:50, you get your 1:50
ruler and draw to the 3 mark. Hope this helps.

Reply

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