What a 1:5 detail
actually shows

Why scale is the whole point

At 1:20, a 3 mm gap is 0.15 mm on paper — invisible. At 1:5 it is 0.6 mm, and you can see whether the gap is a shadow line or an accident.

A detail at 1:1 is better still, and on a repeated junction a physical mock-up at 1:1 is better than any drawing. Each step costs more and finds more.

What a real detail includes

• The thickness of both parts, drawn to thickness
• The fixing, drawn in the position it will actually occupy
• The gap, dimensioned, with a tolerance
• The material behind — plaster, stone, stud, concrete
• The order of assembly, where it matters

If a detail shows two panels meeting but no fixing, the fixing has been left for site. That is where visible screws come from.

What a wrong-scale detail hides

A 1:10 detail rounds 1.5 mm sheet to a line. Once the sheet is a line, a folded return and a cut edge look identical, and the detail stops describing anything real.

The same applies to 3D models exported at low tolerance: the seam looks like a line, and the 1 mm step that mirror polish will show does not exist in the model.

The rule we work to

Every junction gets its own 1:5 detail. If two parts meet, that meeting is drawn, dimensioned and toleranced.

On a hotel lobby this produces a large drawing set. It also produces a set where the arguments happen on paper, in week one, instead of on a scaffold in week twenty.