Free CAD blocks for elevation drawings in DWG and DXF

What's in the elevation pack

The set focuses on the blocks that dress a face-on view. Trees and palms in elevation are the workhorses — they break a flat facade, fill the foreground and middle ground, and set a sense of place. Scale human figures in elevation establish the storey height and give the eye something to measure the building against. Where the elevation meets the ground, paving and surface treatments draw the base line that stops the building floating.

Each block is a clean side-view drawing, not a plan rotated onto its edge, so it reads correctly in an orthographic elevation at typical scales of 1:50 and 1:100. You can recolour or freeze the entourage independently of the architecture.

Setting heights against the facade

Heights are everything in an elevation. A standing adult figure reads at roughly 1700–1850 mm tall, so dropping one at the base of your elevation immediately calibrates the storey heights — if your ground floor looks three figures tall, something is wrong. Trees vary enormously, from a small ornamental of a few metres to a mature shade tree well over the eaves, so pick and scale the tree to the height you want it to read at against the building.

Place the entourage on the correct ground line. A figure or a tree floating above or sunk below the pavement is the fastest way to make an otherwise careful elevation look amateur. Snap the base of each block to the established ground level.

Foreground, middle ground and skyline

Compose the elevation in depth even though it is a flat drawing. Put one or two larger trees in the foreground to frame the view and give a sense of layering. Use middle-ground planting to soften the facade itself without hiding the architecture you are trying to show. Let a few trees break the roofline so the skyline isn't a hard horizontal edge.

Figures belong at the base, at the entrance and along any street-level activity. A couple of people near the door tells the reader where the life of the building is, and sets the human scale exactly where it matters most.

Layers and lineweights for elevations

Keep entourage on its own layers — trees on a planting layer, figures on a people layer — separate from the building linework. This lets you produce a clean technical elevation by freezing the entourage when a building-control reviewer wants to see only the construction, and a presentation elevation by thawing it for the client.

Give entourage a lighter lineweight or a softer colour than the building so it dresses the drawing without competing with the architecture. The building should always read as the subject; the trees and figures are the supporting cast.

Per-item notes for elevations

- Palm and tree (elevation): the primary dressing for any facade. Mix two or three sizes and break the skyline with at least one; keep them on a planting layer. - Scale figures (elevation): place at the base and entrance to set storey height and human scale. A standing adult reads at roughly 1700–1850 mm; calibrate the building against it. - Paving and ground surface: draw the ground line and any forecourt or path so the building meets the earth rather than floating. - Sofa and interior furniture (where windows reveal interiors): a furniture footprint glimpsed through a large window adds life to an elevation, though it sits behind the facade plane.

Who uses elevation entourage

Architects and technicians use dressed elevations for planning submissions and client presentations; landscape architects use them for street and section elevations; students rely on them for studio crits and portfolio sheets. A free, licence-clear elevation library suits all of them because the same blocks carry from an early design elevation through to a final presentation sheet.

Pair the pack with section blocks for cut-through drawings and with plan blocks for the matching layouts. Because every block is free for commercial use, dressed elevations for paid planning and presentation work carry no licensing question.