Architectural drawing symbols form an important role in any architecture drawing and help to define elements such as floor levels, lighting types and service locations. Electrical layouts in particular, require many different items and abbreviations, and accompanied by a key, symbols provide a clear and tidy method of identifying their placement, type and use.
The below architectural symbols, are broken down into the following categories:
- Services symbols
- Lighting symbols
- Electrical symbols
- Plan, elevation and section symbols
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Service symbols
Service symbols represent the mechanics of a building, and help to identify such elements as mechanical ventilation, soil pipes, and incoming power for example. They should show the locations and directions in which they are travelling, and highlight where new and old infrastructures are combined or replaced.

Lighting symbols
Architectural lighting is a huge subject with many variations, lighting symbols provide a simple and clear means of identifying positions, types, amounts and power outputs without the need to litter a drawing with labels.

Electrical symbols
Similar to lighting symbols, electrical symbols show the location and type of power switches and outputs.

Plan, elevation and section symbols
These symbols tend to be related to floor levels and section lines and predominantly aid in the readability of a drawing.

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