Lesson 4.4
The Elevation: The Face, Flattened
The drawing that cuts nothing. An elevation looks straight at one outer face of a building — no slicing, no depth — to show exactly what that face looks like, every measurement still true.
Start hereStand directly in front of a building, far enough that you're not looking up or to the side, and what you see — flattened, with no perspective — is its elevation.
It's the most intuitive of the three, and the one clients understand instantly: it's the building's portrait.
01 — The uncut view
Looking straight at a face
Unlike plan and section, an elevation involves no cut. You simply project the outer face straight onto the picture plane and trace it. Because it's orthographic, there's no perspective — the top of the building is the same scale as the bottom, parallel lines stay parallel, and you can scale any height or width directly off it.
A building has at least four elevations — one per side — named by the direction they face (north elevation, south elevation) or their role (front, rear). Each shows that face's openings, materials, and proportions. Toggle perspective off and on below to feel why elevations are orthographic.
Toggle the view. Orthographic stays true to scale; perspective looks realistic but you can't measure off it.
02 — What an elevation shows
Surface, not depth
An elevation is about the face: the pattern of windows and doors, the materials and their joints, the proportions, the heights of sills and parapets. What it can't show is depth — a deep recessed balcony and a flat painted rectangle can look identical in elevation. That's why elevations work with sections and plans, never alone.
| Elevation shows | Elevation hides |
|---|---|
| Window & door positions on the face | Room depths and layout (use plan) |
| Heights — sills, heads, parapet | How deep things recess (use section) |
| Materials & surface pattern | Internal structure |
| Overall proportion of the face | What's behind the face |
03 — The set works together
Three drawings, one building
You now have the full orthographic family. Plan answers how you move through; section answers how it's built and how tall; elevation answers what the face looks like. No single one is complete — each hides what the others reveal. Read together, they describe a building with no ambiguity and no lies. That's the whole point of orthographic projection, and the next lesson puts all three side by side on one real building.
Skilled draughtspeople hint at depth in an elevation without breaking its orthographic honesty — using lineweight (a recessed window gets lighter lines, a projecting balcony heavier) and shade and shadow (Module 7) to suggest which elements come forward and which sit back. The elevation stays measurable and true, but reads as less flat. It's a lovely example of the course's spine: the drawing is an argument, and a good elevation argues for the building's three-dimensionality using only the flat marks allowed. You'll learn the shadow techniques that do this in Module 7.
10 minutes
- Toggle the demo to perspective: list two ways it distorts measurement that the orthographic elevation doesn't.
- Look at any building's front. Sketch its elevation flat — openings and proportions only, no perspective. Resist the urge to draw the sides receding.
- Name something about that building your elevation can't show, and which drawing (plan or section) would.
Key terms — added to the Drawing Atlas
- Elevation
- An orthographic drawing of an uncut outer face, viewed straight-on. Shows openings, materials and proportion; hides depth.
- Picture plane
- The flat plane onto which a view is projected; in an elevation, the building's face is projected straight onto it.
Check yourself
2 quick questions — pick an answer to see why.
Q1What does an elevation hide that you'd need another drawing to find?
Q2Why is an elevation orthographic rather than perspective?
- An elevation is an uncut, straight-on, orthographic view of one outer face — no perspective.
- Every height and width is true to scale; parallel lines stay parallel.
- It shows the face — openings, materials, proportion — but hides depth and layout.
- Plan, section and elevation each hide what the others reveal; together they describe a building completely.
You can draw all three projections. The real skill is reading them as one — looking at a plan, a section and an elevation and rebuilding the whole building in your mind. Ready to try it on a real house?