What’s on the Poche poster
A definition and 6 facts worth remembering.
Poche is the filling in of everything the drawing cuts through, so mass reads as mass and space reads as space at a glance.
- From the French for pocketed, or stuffed.
- Solid black at small scales, hatched at large ones.
- It shows wall thickness, which shows the structure.
- Thick poche implies masonry; thin implies a frame.
- Poche can hold servant spaces, as in Kahn's work.
- A plan without poche reads as lines, not as rooms.
- At 1:200 — solid fill
- At 1:20 — layers shown
- In Beaux-Arts plans the poche was thick enough to contain stairs, flues and stores wi…
As scale increases, poche stops being a black shape and becomes the real build-up. The change happens around 1:50.
Questions about the Poche poster
- What’s on the Poche poster?
- A definition and 6 facts worth remembering. Poche is the filling in of everything the drawing cuts through, so mass reads as mass and space reads as space at a glance. From the French for pocketed, or stuffed.; Solid black at small scales, hatched at large ones.; It shows wall thickness, which shows the structure.; Thick poche implies masonry; thin implies a frame.; Poche can hold servant spaces, as in Kahn's work.; A plan without poche reads as lines, not as rooms.; At 1:200 — solid fill; At 1:20 — layers shown; In Beaux-Arts plans the poche was thick enough to contain stairs, flues and stores wi…. As scale increases, poche stops being a black shape and becomes the real build-up. The change happens around 1:50.
- Who is the Poche poster for?
- Poche belongs to the Architecture section rather than to a school year, because design is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning representation can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Poche poster?
- Use it to make a plan legible instantly. It is the fastest way to show what is solid. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Poche belongs on the wall where that design work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Poche?
- Annotation and Dimensions, Axonometric and CAD, BIM and the Model sit alongside Poche in the Architecture section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Annotation and DimensionsAxonometricCAD, BIM and the Model
- Is the Poche poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Poche downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Architecture section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Poche poster print at?
- Poche is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Poche loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Poche on the same wall.
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