Essay
Why we start every building from the section
Plans tell you where things are. Sections tell you how a building feels: where you arrive, how you rise and where the light lands.
Written by
Maren Visser
Most buildings are designed in plan. You draw rooms, connect them with corridors and stack the result. The section comes last, often as a check that the stairs fit.
We work the other way round. The first drawing on every project is a cut through the building, from the foundations to the roof. It shows the ground, the light and the people moving between floors, and it forces decisions that a plan lets you postpone.
What the section decides
Ceiling heights, where daylight reaches, how a stair becomes a place to stop, which floors share a view. These are the things people remember about a building, and none of them are visible in plan.
A rule we keep
If an idea does not survive the section, it does not go into the plan.