Instruction drawings

These drawings are intended as an unambiguous one-way form of communication
from designer or design team to constructor or supplier. They are usually only done after the designed object is largely resolved and they contain certain knowledge in the form of instructions for those responsible for physically creating the object.

There are two variants. In some cases the drawing shows only the final form and constituent parts of the object while in others the drawing also shows the intermediate methods of construction.
Examples of the latter might include those notoriously unhelpful drawings which accompany flat packed furniture from certain well-known retailers who prefer to leave their customers to perform the final construction.

They serve to illustrate how difficult it might be to be entirely clear and unambiguous in instruction drawings.
A common project in design schools to teach this skill is the submission of such drawings of simple objects to fellow students who must then perform the construction. The results are sometimes surprising to the author of the drawings.
 However, apart from this entertaining element of complexity such drawings seldom tell us much about the nature of design knowledge but rather about the nature of the finished article. The more common instruction
drawings are those made for specialist expert contractors or manufacturers who can be assumed to understand a whole series of drawing conventions.

 The example shown here (Fig. ) is again by the architect Ken Yeang. It shows two sections through a proposed building made to assist the major contractor.

Again such drawings are deliberate and selective and tell us little about the nature of thinking that was involved in the design process. For this reason we shall not discuss instruction drawings much more here either.

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