Putting together floor plans is simple thanks to the myriad software solutions designed to streamline this process.

Of course if you aren’t familiar with the market and you don’t know what separates the top options from their second rate rivals, it’s easy to be baffled by the choices you face.

To clear up any confusion, and to help you extract optimal value from the package you pick, here are some tips on what makes good floor plan software, and how to use these tools successfully.

Use software that lets you easily duplicate your floor plans

First of all, you need a floor plan maker that isn’t tied to one specific way of creating designs. Instead, versatility is the name of the game, and if the software can swiftly turn 2D floor plans into 3D renders of the space, this is obviously valuable.

Better still, if the software can create a 3D duplicate of a 2D plan in real time, then it should be at the top of your watch list.

Such duplication and replication techniques are desirable from an efficiency standpoint, but also mean that you can quickly work out whether a design is logical or not, rather than spending hours on the two dimensional layout, only to find that it is impractical when viewed in three dimensions.

Embrace the power of the cloud

The age of locally installed software solutions is over, and the power and flexibility of cloud computing can be brought to bear on all sorts of tools and packages, including those made for floor plan creation.

There are lots of reasons to pick a cloud-based floor plan tool, chief among which is the scalability. Aside from not being limited by the processing grunt of the device you are using, it can also adapt to meet your needs.

Whether you are an enthusiastic amateur or a professional who needs to give whole teams access to cutting edge floor plan software, the cloud makes this achievable and affordable.

Collaboration also comes as part of this. Sharing design files with colleagues and clients, working together on designs and providing in-depth details of the dimensions and materials is a breeze with the best platforms.

Put together the perfect floor plan

There are a number of important aspects to a good floor plan, so let’s go over just a few of them so that you can get on with your use of modern software.

Positioning, scale & dimensions

This is the holy trinity of a robust floor plan. You need to include the dimensions of each room, including the doors and windows. You need to show how the rooms relate to one another in terms of their position within the property. You need to ensure that the scale is consistent, to create an accurate representation of the full-sized project.

Within these three, there are other aspects to consider and master. When looking at door size and position, for example, you also need to determine whether they should open into the space, or out of it, depending on the area available as well as standard design conventions on this matter.

Furniture placement

If you plan out rooms as blank boxes, it’s easy to make mistakes in terms of the configuration from a practical perspective. As such it helps a lot to include the furniture that will feature in each room as a guide to how it should be designed on the floor plan.

Placing furniture in a floor plan is not just helpful for the architect, but can also empower clients with the ability to visualize the space.

Flow

Rooms cannot just work in isolation; they need to make sense in the broader context of the home and how it will be used.

Putting the dining room on the opposite side of the property from the kitchen is an obvious example of an error which you can spot at the floor plan stage.

But it can also be subtler than that, giving you insights into whether there is enough space to move through rooms, and a logical harmony to their configuration.

Final thoughts

The right software and the right approach can make floor plan creation straightforward as well as undeniably pleasurable. Furthermore a carefully honed floor plan should bring an entire architectural project together and make it run smoothly.

 

Tags | Design | Staging
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