North Arrow orientation

in any map i have ever seen, north is always pointing up.

Other disciplines should follow this most ancient of conventions.

Of course, there are situations where north is in some other direction on the sheet. For example, to fit the subject on the sheet or because the info is easier and more logical to read in some other orientation.

NB: our compatriots in the southern hemisphere have their own conventions, as is their right.

 

I've found with Australian Cadastral Deposited Plans (By Surveyors) that if
the plan is co-ordinated (and labelled such) then the plans are not
'rotated' to have north face up. For obvious reasons of course....

Plans not co-ordinated are usually orientated with north up the page
(however i have seen one or two that were a little oddball)

 

Well, that is interesting. I just reviewed a number of current projects and
found that almost all have north pointing up but very few if any have the
front of the building along the botton of the sheet. We do M&P and the
orinitation is set by the Architect.

"Tom Smith" <nospam> wrote in message

way.

<snip>

 

I have seen some oddly angled buildings where the "front" wasn't clearly
defined, and sometimes pieces of a building oriented differently from the
rest, in order to fit on the sheet, with a "plan north" arrow and/or key
plan to indicate the relationship to the overall building.

But again, in 25 years of architectural practice in the US, I am quite sure
I have never seen any architect anywhere draw, for instance, a rectangular
floor plan oriented at an oddball angle on the drawing sheet because of the
direction of north. Site plans may show north up with the building angled,
sometimes, but not building plans. It would be an absurd use of paper, for
one thing.

The convention of squaring up the building with the sheet was well
established by the many hundreds of years of manual drafting that came
before CAD. No drafter in his right mind would voluntarily tape his sheet
down diagonally on the drafting board, with the corners hanging off the
board, so that he could use his t-square or parallel bar to draw the
right-angled building at an angle to the sheet. Again, you might see that on
a site plan, but never on any other architectural drawing.

And as every other response in this thread from the architectural field has
indicated, the universal practice is to locate the predominant "entrance" or
"front" of the thing being portrayed -- whether it's a playground or a
building -- at the bottom of the sheet.

Do a web search on "house plans" and 100% of all the plans you see will have
the front door at the bottom of the plan. That's how everyone, whether or
not they're skilled at reading plans, orients themselves to plans. Turn the
plan any other way, and the great majority of people will have a hard time
identifying the front.

I don't know where you are, or whose drawings you're looking at, or why
they're the way you describe, but it's not standard practice.

 

See replies in line:

OK, I agree.

OK, I agree. Never said they did.

OK, I agree. Never said they did.

I reviewed the other responses to this thread any found very few that even
mentioned it.

No thanks, no really that concerned about it.

I looked at a dozen different architects drawing in our current jobs and
found that most were not located with the front of the building at the
bottom, but most with north up, and no, none where cock-eyed. I am in San
Diego, going to the beach now, bye.

 

Front at the bottom is by far the most common convention, and though you
seem eager to argue the point because of some architects' drawings in your
office, you're not "interested" enough to do a 2 minute exercise on seeing
what is in fact the near-universal convention. So why argue?

On occasion, I've turned a plan sideways on a sheet, if that's the only way
it would fit. It's better to contradict the convention than to break a plan
in pieces, or reduce the scale, to make it fit the paper. But in those cases
I've generally included an indication like "Front" or "Entrance" to clarify
the atypical orientation.

You seem to be saying that these buildings all happen to sit orthogonal to
the sheet, and coincidentally have north pointing up. This could only happen
if the building lots were laid out on an orthogonal north-south grid. I made
the natural assumption that you were talking about a cockeyed arrangement of
the building on the sheet, because it is extraordinarily rare, in general,
for a piece of property to be square with the compass.

A quick check of Mapquest shows that most of San Diego's streets are indeed
on a grid which appears to be perfectly on compass directions. Mystery
solved! In your city, most buildings are laid out by the compass, because
they have to be.

Now if you think this layout is true of the great majority of cities and
towns in the world, or that this particular town's plan determines what is
standard practice for all architects in the world, you're completely
mistaken. You're looking at a small selection of plans based on an unusual
situation.

Many urban areas are laid out on a rectangular grid, but it's seldom aligned
with the compass, and once you get outside the central business district and
encounter some topography -- even in San Diego -- the grid quickly breaks
down. Most new green-field development, out in the burbs, doesn't have
property lines that are anywhere near rectangular, or in any relationship to
north.

 

Without a major war over this, because in fact, it is a humorous fact that is often
a subject of argument, I am only aware of two architects at this time who are adamant
about forcing the entry at the bottom of the sheet, and placing north where ever it
falls.

One is here in this group, and one is a friend in Los Angeles.

Of course so much has changed with regard to good sense in the past 30 years,
starting
with the air-head 60's and forward, that most rules went out the window a long time
ago.

Most buildings are oriented either by plan or accident to have one axis less than 45
degree
off of True North. Rotating the building so that it is orthogonal to the sheet is
common
practice, as you stated, but forcing the entry to be facing down is only common to
those who
chose to do so, and not by actual drafting tradition, or drafting rules.

On a recent project that my friend needed help producing, he insisted on North being
DOWN.
The civil engineer had already drawn the site plan a year ahead of this project, and
North was UP.

The architect, my friend, was adamant. North is down. The civil somehow became
confused, and
flipped the site plan left to right, inside of top to bottom, and then turned the
North arrow down.

I drew the architectural site plan from that plan, and then located all the existing
to be removed structures.

Two weeks into drawing the floor plans, I noticed something was odd about the site
plan that was in conflict with something else.

The result was that everything had to be drawn over. Well, being on a computer
helped for once, but still, the
civil engineer was pissed off, and the architect and the civil each thinks the other
is an idiot as a result.

The entry to this project wasn't even on the top or bottom.....in its correct
position, according to the compass, it should have been on the left, but placing
North Down, placed the entry to the right edge of the sheet. Well that was the entry
to the site plan...via the security gate, and a driveway, but the structure did have
its entry side facing the bottom of the sheet.

I have other architect friends who are just as adamant about the Up or to the Left of
the North Arrow.

Everyone seems to have their own reasoning on this, but it seems to me that there
should be some common consist points of reference
between the orientation of the site and the orientation of the building, from sheet
to sheet when at all possible, and also between disciplines whenever possible.

Any confusion over this controversy when actually trying to use the plans to build
something is usually not long lasting. The problem is that an assumption can be made
without realizing for a week that there is a conflict between two sheets that show
North in two different directions. By then it could be costly.

What I am really trying to say here is that so far in the past 50 years at least,
most buildings get built facing the correct direction, regardless of conflicts
between disciplines, or inconsistencies between sheets. It is not a subject worthy
of anger or stress, or flinging insults, but it is a subject, much like decimal scale
vs. architectural scale....that is better suited to be laughed at, and tolerated at
the time someone tells you to locate the North arrow facing the opposite of your own
preference.

So have a laugh over this, and enjoy the great weekend weather....at least it is
fantastic out here on the west coast, San Diego included, and even here near LAX
where I am.

Jack Talsky

 

You did this on purpose didn't you? Did you know you would start a war over this
question?

Jack Talsky

 

Thanks, Jack. Kind words and good sense.

Actually I had a lovely weekend, working on my watercolor paintings, my personal relief from the hard-line world. It was beautiful here on the East coast as well.

My current painting effort is trying to learn to portray foliage, even as our oak trees leaf out. A small sketch is at http://thewareplace.com/tsmith/oak2ndtrylores.jpg

 

That is really nice.

In case you need a place to post them for friends, etc., Epson has a free site...
www.photo.epson.com 100 mb of free space.

I have tried my hand at watercolor, but never could get it right...it takes a lot of
practice.

If you have more, send me the site where I can see them.

Check this site out: http://tinyurl.com/v3yz

Jack

relief from the hard-line world. It was beautiful here on the East coast as well.

trees leaf out. A small sketch is at
http://thewareplace.com/tsmith/oak2ndtrylores.jpg

 

If you reorientated your desk would you need to redraw???

 

Drafting 101 north arrow to top of page, or to the left, or anywhere between 9am and 12pm. There is no law and exceptions must be made. Maps normally follow this rule but if you are doing architectural plans you might make to street the bottom of your drawing.