How the scoring is judged
A passing or strong site plan is not just about having all the required functions on the sheet. The score depends on whether the design responds to the brief, whether the relationships among site elements are clear and visually convincing, and whether the drawing itself is clean, legible, and compliant with drafting conventions.
What typically earns more than 60
A score above 60 usually means the design works as a whole. The proposal meets the assignment requirements, the relationships among the elements in the overall plan are clear and visually well organized, and the drawing follows standard rules.
The drafting quality also matters a great deal. A higher-scoring sheet usually has:
- a clear figure-ground relationship
- distinct line-weight hierarchy
- a clean overall presentation
- complete and legible annotations
- neat, orderly lettering
Key points that affect plan quality
Planting and green space
The boundary line of landscaped areas should be drawn clearly. Along the outer edge of the site, a ring of street trees should be shown. Other planting areas should be marked in a way that distinguishes them appropriately, forms a closed shape, and includes text labels.
Parking layout
When there are only one or two isolated parking spaces and they cannot reasonably form a group, they do not necessarily have to be handled strictly according to the usual requirement of keeping them 6 meters away from the building outline.
Special parking spaces, such as accessible spaces, must be highlighted clearly and drawn separately rather than being mixed in vaguely with ordinary parking.
Line weights
In review, the drawing will be scanned into an electronic sheet. Because of that, the linework in a site plan should be slightly heavier so that reviewers can still read it clearly after scanning.
At the same time, line weights must be controlled by element. Different parts of the drawing should not all use the same thickness. The building outline should use the heaviest line weight.
Order and regularity of elements
Individual site elements should be regular and well composed. If a green area can be made into a square or another clean, orderly shape, it should not be disrupted unnecessarily by cutting off a corner just to insert a plaza or a parking space.
Whenever a regular form is possible, it is generally better not to make it irregular.
If the program text requires certain elements to be grouped, then they cannot be scattered randomly across the plan. External parking is a typical example: if it is meant to be arranged in groups, it should appear as a grouped and regular layout, not as isolated spaces scattered here and there.
What usually falls below 60
Plans that score below 60 often show fundamental problems rather than minor drafting issues.
Common problems include:
- traffic circulation that is awkward, winding, or incomplete
- circulation routes that do not form a clear closed system
- elements that are irregular, fragmented, or overly broken up
- failure to satisfy the assignment requirements
- messy linework, including visible repeated tracing instead of confident single-stroke drawing
- incorrect annotations
- missing required elements
- untidy handwriting
- missing entrances or exits
- setback distances that do not meet requirements
- incorrectly drawn symbols or legends
In short, a stronger site plan is not only correct in content but also disciplined in organization and drawing method. The plan should read clearly at a glance, the elements should be arranged with order, and every graphic decision should support both function and legibility.