Building Elements and Construction Details: Walls, Openings, Stairs, Roofs
This domain asks you to draw building fabric the way it is actually built in Cyprus: a reinforced concrete frame with brick infill, rendered externally, a flat roof with waterproofing and insulation, and aluminium sliding windows. Details are tested at 1:20 and 1:5, where every layer must be named.
Walls and openings
- Typical external build-up: 200–250 mm structural frame or infill, cement plaster both faces, thermal insulation at the external face or in a cavity, final render or cladding. Finished thickness commonly reaches 250–300 mm; dimension plans to the structural face to avoid ambiguity.
- An opening is drawn with sill, reveal, lintel and threshold; the window frame (κάσα) and leaf (φύλλο) are thin-line elements, the wall poché thick.
- Damp-proof course at threshold level, flashing and upstand where a roof meets a wall.
Stairs
- Rule of comfort: 2R + G between 600 and 640 mm. Typical domestic riser 150–180 mm, going 260–300 mm.
- Headroom measured vertically from the nosing line: not less than about 2.10 m.
- Equal risers throughout a flight, maximum deviation a few millimetres; the top riser lands on the floor slab, so a flight of 17 risers has 16 goings.
- Landing length not less than the flight width; handrail about 0.90 m above the pitch line; balustrade to the void.
Roofs
- Flat roof: falls of 1–2% to outlets, waterproofing turned up 150–250 mm at the parapet, insulation above or below the membrane, protection screed, parapet (στηθαίο) with flashing.
- Pitched roof: pitch, ridge, eaves overhang and gutter drawn consistently in section and elevation.
Worked example
Floor-to-floor height 3000 mm, available stair run 4000 mm plus landing.
- Try R = 175: 3000 ÷ 175 = 17.14 → adopt 17 risers, R = 3000 ÷ 17 = 176.5 mm.
- Goings = 16; at G = 280 mm the flight needs 16 × 280 = 4480 mm - it does not fit in 4000 mm.
- Options: reduce G to 250 (16 × 250 = 4000 mm, exactly the run) or introduce a winder or a longer landing. Check 2R + G = 353 + 250 = 603 mm, still inside the comfort band.
Traps
- Unequal risers at the top of a flight, or a landing dimensioned as a going.
- Headroom measured at the wrong point of the flight.
- Window sill and head heights stated in the elevation but absent from the section.
- A roof falling away from the outlet, or no levels given for outlet and parapet top.
- Unlabelled layers in a 1:5 detail - the examiner cannot credit what is not named.
- Detail drawn at 1:20 when the sheet calls for 1:5.