I learned a useful lesson as a returning architect when I asked the men around the meeting table to explain a particular term they had been batting about for over 5 minutes. It was clearly important, from memory it was something to do with concrete or foundations but I couldn’t work it out from any context. Pause. Cough. Did anyone know? This was in the days before smart phones so there was no frantic googling under the table (sounds rude-sorry).
“Yes,” says the project manager, “I’ve always wondered that too.”
Turns out I wasn't the only want who didn't have a clue what we were discussing, I was just the only one prepared to ask.
Looking back, my first boss thought it was his job to educate me on technicalities like a thrumming extract fan because I would be working with tradesmen who would assume I didn’t know anything about fans (because I was female). It didn’t occur to him that I didn't mind asking the person who was an expert on fans what the problem was and felt no less of an expert in my own field just because I would have to ask him (or her) to explain.
I assume other industries are the same, but architects and builders will use words that sound familiar but seem to have a different meaning and you can feel lost before you've even started. So if you are not sure what something means, ask!
Let's start with some tools of the trade which I confess I've never stopped to explain:
Plan
Elevation
Section
These are the drawings of your building and are used to describe it to you, to planners, to other professionals and to builders. You may feel 3D models are more helpful for you to visualize a building and there is sophisticated (and not so sophisticated) software to help you do that. Nevertheless, 2D drawings (or diagrams as some people call them) remain a necessary tool for the design and construction industry. They allow us to draw and design to scale (meaning they are a ratio of the size in real life, like 1/50th) so that anyone can use the drawing to work out how big it will be when built.
Even if your designer is able to do beautiful 3D visualization for you, at some point they will refer to a plan or elevation or section. Here's an explainer.
Check out other explainer posts on drawings and measurements.
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