Stairs
A staircase, seen from above. The arrow shows the direction of travel from this floor, labelled with the direction and the number of risers.
How to read it
The Army's print-reading manual gives the example 17 DN with an arrow: 17 risers from the floor shown to the floor below, in the direction of the arrow. The A/E/C Graphics Standard also numbers the stairs, with STAIR 1 for the most prominent stair with the largest egress capacity, and keeps each stair's number the same on every floor.
Also searched as: stair symbol, up arrow on stairs.
This explains what a symbol represents on a drawing. Conventions vary between firms and standards, and a drawing's own legend takes precedence.
Common misreadings
The arrow leads away from the floor shown on the plan. As Wyatt pointed out, an arrow marked down can't be turned round and marked up to mean the same thing: in a one-story house the first leads to the basement and the second to the attic.
Read next
- Next in Blueprint symbolsCenterlineA line of long and short dashes that marks the centre of a round or symmetrical object.
- The same shape in UML diagram symbolsDependencyA dashed line with an open arrowhead is a dependency. The element at the tail depends on, or uses, the element the arrow points to.
More blueprint symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with arrows, lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Construction Print Reading in the Field, TM 5-704 / AFM 85-27, Departments of the Army and the Air Force, para. 2-4b
- A/E/C Graphics Standard, Release 2.2, ERDC/ITL SR-23-1, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, CAD/BIM Technology Center, sec. 3.3.6
- Reading Architects' Blueprints, William S. Lowndes, 1922, International Textbook Company, Scranton (Internet Archive), §6, art. 9; §7, art. 62
- Blue Print Reading: Interpreting Working Drawings, E. M. Wyatt, 1920, Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee (Internet Archive), Architectural floor plan conventions
- Construction Drawings CAD Standards, Facilities Development and Management, 5 June 2023, Arizona State University, Table three: layer standards
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 24, 2026. How we research
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