Reading the Design For Place drawings

Use these extracts with chapter 16. Begin with the actual titleblock, then the floor plan, schedule and relevant elevation or section. Every large drawing can be opened at its full supplied pixel size; the original PDF remains the scalable source. Do not measure screen distances as construction dimensions.

Source packs and their limits

The Banksia technical drawings contain the principal June 2023 set followed by four older alternative sheets. The Telopea technical drawings contain twelve June 2023 sheets. Read them with the corresponding Banksia Design Options and Telopea Design Options.

These are preliminary house-design guides. They are not a complete, project-approved construction set and do not supply a coordinated survey, engineer's design and services package. The source's disclaimer applies. The two Brisbane examples do not set the jurisdiction for the whole Fieldbook.

A first route: Banksia's window

The titleblock says Floor Plan, drawing2/11, June 2023 and Preliminary. It also states1:100 at A3. Those are document facts, not a revision history or construction approval.

On the floor plan, find W2 and W3. Then move to the schedule extract. It labels W3 as mirrored. The full schedule legend identifies FG as fixed glass and CW as casement sash; use the actual legend rather than guessing from a diagonal line.

The schedule's W2/W3 overall width is 2650 millimetres, divided into 1800 and 850. Its height is 1500, above a900-millimetre sill height measured from the shown ground finished-floor datum. The addition900 +1500 gives the2400-millimetre head level. These relationships are clearer in the focused crop than in a reduced whole sheet. Mirroring swaps the arrangement's handedness; it does not change its total width.

Return to the plan to recover location. The schedule alone cannot tell you where in the house the item belongs. Compare the east elevation and sections for the building's vertical relationships, then the setout plan for dimensions. A tag, a dimension and a level each answer a different question.

A second route: Telopea across two storeys

Start with the ground and upper floor plans. Follow the stair and the rooms it connects, then open Section AA. The section shows room height and the intervening floor construction as different relationships. A2700-millimetre ground-floor ceiling height is not automatically the floor-to-floor height. The upper-floor setout and window schedule provide other information that the furnished plan leaves out.

The schedule's lower row includes upper-window identifiers such as W6, yet its level line is labelled GROUND FFL. Read that label alongside the floor plans and section, and preserve the query discussed in chapter 16. Do not silently rename the datum while interpreting the drawing. The complete crop retains both the identifier and label so that the issue can actually be examined.

Credits for every drawing extract

© Commonwealth of Australia 2026. Design For Place is licensed under CC BY 4.0, and provided free of charge at Your Home.

The extracts are cropped from the linked technical drawings. Cropping removes margins and unrelated titleblock material; the remaining drawing content has not been redrawn or corrected. The focused window, titleblock and legend images are additional crops from the same sources. Source logos and the Commonwealth Coat of Arms are outside the extracted regions. No government endorsement is represented.

See Your Home copyright and exclusions. The image licence does not make the example suitable for a particular building site.