Elevation Drawings: A Complete Guide to Architectural Elevations

Elevations are how a building is communicated visually to everyone who builds it. Plans tell you what is where in two horizontal dimensions. Sections tell you what is where vertically through the building. Elevations tell you what the building looks like from the outside — and they carry critical construction information about exterior materials, openings, heights, and finishes that no other drawing communicates as clearly.

What is an elevation drawing?

An elevation drawing is a flat (orthographic) view of a building face, drawn as if you were standing directly perpendicular to that face and seeing it without perspective distortion. There are no vanishing points. A 10-foot wall section drawn 30 feet from the viewer is the same height on the drawing as a 10-foot wall section drawn 3 feet from the viewer.

Elevations are produced for every external face of a building (typically labeled by compass direction — North, South, East, West Elevation) and often for interior conditions where vertical detail matters (interior elevations of kitchens, bathrooms, lobbies, retail interiors).

Types of elevation drawings

The construction document set typically includes several types of elevations:

• Building elevations — exterior elevations of each face of the building. Usually 2-4 sheets in a typical CD set.
• Architectural elevations — a broader term covering all elevations produced by the architect, including building elevations, interior elevations, and partial elevations.
• Interior elevations — elevations of interior walls, typically produced for kitchens, bathrooms, retail, hospitality, and any space with significant vertical detail (millwork, equipment, fixtures).
• Section elevations — elevations cut from a building section, showing what is visible on the face of the cut. Useful for showing interior wall conditions in context.
• Partial elevations — elevations of just part of a building face, typically at larger scale, used to show detail conditions like storefront, entry, or feature walls.
• Home elevations / residential elevations — elevations of single-family or multifamily residential projects, often produced as part of permit sets and marketing packages.

What appears on an elevation drawing

A complete exterior elevation includes:

• Building outline — the silhouette of the building face being shown
• All openings — windows, doors, vents, equipment penetrations
• Material indications — siding patterns, masonry coursing, panel joints, roof materials
• Vertical dimensions — floor-to-floor heights, top-of-parapet, ridge height, finish floor elevations
• Horizontal references — column lines projected through the elevation, key building dimensions
• Material call-outs — usually keynoted, referencing a finish schedule
• Detail bubbles — pointing to wall sections, jamb details, parapet details, etc.
• Roof slopes — pitch indicators where visible
• Adjacent grade — finish grade lines where the building meets the ground
• Signage, lighting, equipment — anything visible on the face that is part of the building scope

How to read an elevation drawing

Reading an elevation systematically:

1. Identify which face you're looking at. The elevation title (North Elevation, Front Elevation, etc.) and the orientation symbol on the floor plan tell you the direction.
2. Establish your vertical references. Find the finish floor elevation, top of foundation, top of parapet or ridge, and any major vertical dimension strings on the drawing.
3. Trace the column grid. Column lines projected through the elevation help you cross-reference with the floor plan.
4. Identify openings. Windows and doors are typically tagged with a code that references a window or door schedule. The schedule gives you actual size, type, and specifications.
5. Read material indications. Patterns and hatches on the elevation indicate exterior materials. The legend or finish schedule tells you what each pattern represents.
6. Follow the detail bubbles. Detail callouts point to enlarged wall sections, jamb conditions, parapet details, and so on. Those are where the actual construction detail lives.

What does "elevation" mean in different contexts?

The word "elevation" gets used for two very different things in construction. The drawing type — the orthographic vertical view we have been discussing — is one meaning. The other is a height value: an "elevation" of 105'-0" means a point that is 105 feet above the project datum (often above mean sea level, sometimes above an arbitrary datum like a finish floor).

Both uses are everywhere on construction documents. "Top of slab elevation: 100'-0\"" appears on foundation plans as a height. "See sheet A2.01 for North Elevation" appears as a sheet reference. The context makes it obvious which meaning is intended, but worth knowing both because both come up constantly.

Common elevation abbreviations

A few elevation abbreviations show up often enough to be worth memorizing:

• EL or ELEV — elevation (height value)
• F.F. — finish floor (elevation of the finished floor surface)
• T.O.S. — top of slab
• T.O.W. — top of wall
• B.O.W. — bottom of wall
• T.O.P. — top of parapet
• A.F.F. — above finish floor
• F.G. — finish grade
• N.G. — natural grade

Elevations vs sections

Elevations show what is visible on the face of a building from outside (or from a specific viewing direction). Sections show what is inside the building when you cut it along a specific plane. Elevations are produced from the exterior surface inward; sections are produced by slicing through the building and looking at what the slice reveals.

A "section elevation" is a hybrid — a section cut, but with what is visible beyond the cut drawn in elevation form. Useful for showing tall interior spaces with significant vertical detail, like atria, lobbies, and gymnasiums.

Need help producing elevation drawings?

We produce architectural elevations as part of full CD set drafting and as overflow support for permit sets, design development packages, and as-built documentation. Same time zone, native English, two revision rounds included by default. See our CAD drafting services page for AutoCAD elevations or Revit drafting services for parametric Revit elevation production.