Hello John,

An interesting question: I'm not aware of such a standard, and there may be
good reasons for that. From the data management point of view a preferable
option (for digital drawings at least) would be to treat the elements of the
structure as separate digital 'layers' and attach appropriate descriptive
data to each element / layer, including Period terms (e.g. architectural
periods) or phase numbers (1, 2 etc), and use the functionality of the
drawing package to automatically colour say all 'Georgian' elements in
green, all 'Victorian' elements of 'Phase 1' in red etc. If you can do that
(and I must say its not an area I'm familiar with - maybe others can
comment?) then the choice of colours can simply reflect what looks best,
rather than having to follow a particular standard. A similar issue to GIS
symbols that has been discussed on this list before.

Of course none of this helps if you are drawing on paper!

The closest thing to this from English Heritage would I think be the
following, which can be ordered via EH publications (contact details below).


Title: Recording Historic Buildings: A descriptive specification (third
edition) 
Publisher: English Heritage 
Product Code: 50110 
ISBN 1 87359 228 0 
Price £5.00 
 
English Heritage
c\o Gillards
Trident Works
Temple Cloud
Bristol BS39 5AZ 
Tel 01761-452966 (24 hours)
Fax 01761-453408 

-----Original Message-----
From: john winstone [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 February 2004 18:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [FISH] Colour coding of building fabric dates


Is there yet an agreed colour coding for the dates of building fabric when
preparing historic building surveys? 

I suppose this could simply be a series of colours for periods 1 and
onwards. Alternatively, by centuries, or simply a sequence of colours that
the building historian could apply to the dated sequence in hand. I could of
course invent one, but it seems to me it would be a great help in reading
drawings for there to be an agreed sequence for all to use and so recognise.

This is not of course as straightforward as it sounds. Simple enough with
plan and section projections, but as far as surfaces are concerned - floors
or walls for instance where fabric dates may vary from the enclosing walls -
I think they need to be light tints of the period in question. Otherwise a
rendering easily becomes garish. 

Can anyone tell me where I could find such an agreed code, if I've missed it
please.

John Winstone RIBA IHBC