Category: Floor Plan

My son’s school asked me to create these a few years ago. I made dozens of them, each one customised not only to the building it is in, but also the wall it is mounted on.

First I stared long and hard at the traditional diagrams and decided they were almost useless. They are horribly cluttered, carry far too much irrelevant information, and they try to say two things at once – Evacuation Routes and locations of Safety Equipment.

I wanted to make something that didn’t just address statutory requirements, but actually enhanced safety. My solution was two make two quite separate diagrams, each containing only the bare minimum of information, and to orient the Evacuation Diagram to correspond to its location.

I used Sketchup for this one – an accurately measured 3D representation of my 3 year old son’s classroom “Waratah” at Brisbane Montessori School.

It doesn’t look like a regular school classroom, because Montessori classrooms emphasise individual learning using the specially designed equipment which is stored on the shelving throughout the room.

I was very pleased with the outcome of this project; it evokes the room well in a slightly antiseptic way.