Week 7 Reflected Ceiling Plans

1. Reflected Ceiling Plans

2. • Supplementary reading from another very good reference text.

3. • This helps explain why a ceiling plan is also referred to as a “Reflected Ceiling Plan”.
• Some would say that the mirrored cutting plane is actually located approximately
just below door and/or window head height – explaining why furniture that might
be shown in an RCP is lightly dashed in.

4. • While not often seen as design drawings, Reflected Ceiling Plans can (and
should) be developed as a part of the other orthographic drawings.
• Some consider the ceiling to be the “fifth wall” or the “overhead floor plan”.

5. • This page illustrates examples of a residential ceiling plan and a commercial ceiling
plan. Note that the residential ceiling plan would still require a legend of the fixtures
shown, as well as dimensions locating them.
• Note how the commercial plan light fixtures graphically “pop” from the ceiling grid (it
would be nice if the air supply and air return symbols did the same).

6. • This example illustrates how you might lay out a ceiling tile grid system
within rooms.
• Keep in mind where larger spaces are concerned, or floor to ceiling glass is
involved, that ceiling grids should appear continuous and systematic.

7. • From the Cavataio textbook, an example of a hand drafted ceiling plan with legend, good line
weights, poché, material notations (angled glass), light fixture circuiting information (note
this variation of the preferred long line – short dash – long line style of circuiting linework),
and title strip.
• Note: some RCP’s show door swings to differentiate doors from windows and to make access
to light switches clear (here the light switches would be behind an open door).

8. • From another worthwhile reference text
(by the same authors as our required drafting text).

9. • In which the ceiling plan is related to the organizer of human comfort…

10. • An example of a commercial ceiling plan organizing, light fixtures, HVAC (supply
and return diffusers), exhaust fans, sprinklers and ceiling finishes.
• Note ceiling heights have not been noted here, although oftentimes they would
be noted on the ceiling plan (ceiling plane changes would also be indicated
here).

11. • From an excellent monograph on Louis Kahn,
by Robert McCarter.

12. • Beyond the purview of basic drafting, but of design history and ceiling plan
interest is Louis Kahn’s treatment of the ceiling at the Yale Art Gallery.

13. • In this drawing, the innovative ceiling plan is shown directly below the section of
the ceiling to illustrate the plan/section relationship of the complex geometry.
• Note the section reference markers in the ceiling plan and how section B-B is nested
within section A-A (section C-C is noted, but not illustrated here).

14. • An isometric drawing illustrating the elements making up the construction of the
tetrahedronal ceiling (helpful in drawing the ceiling accurately in ceiling plan view).
• Note the model photo above is not of the Yale Art Gallery, but an associated design
idea by Kahn’s associate, Anne Tyng.

15. • Kahn’s ceiling plan is shown in conjunction with Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome
model.
• Note the ceiling plan shows an ordering system of the gallery’s floor plan (although the
ceiling plan here does not expressly show lighting fixtures and such). It is a design
drawing of the ceiling plan.