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Diagrams represent ideas in visual form. They are twodimensional (although they can show threedimensional objects) and may contain text, shapes and lines; the word diagram literally means ‘marked out by lines’ in Greek. They have existed for thousands of years, though of course they have become more sophisticated over time. Today we use three main types of diagram. Quantitative diagrams (such as bar graphs and pie charts) illustrate data sets, and tend to be the first ones we encounter in school. Conceptual diagrams (like flowcharts and Venn diagrams) show relationships between items, while schematic diagrams (like exploded diagrams and subway maps) are best described as simplified, abstracted pictures. Architectural diagrams tend either to be conceptual or schematic. What is an architectural diagram? Architectural diagrams help to clarify a building, relationships between elements of a building, or a process connected to a building. They have no unified appearance but they distil unwieldy, hardtounderstand concepts into discrete, easytounderstand images. They do this with visual symbols which can be considered all at once, unlike language which must be processed in a linear fashion. The architectural theorist Robert Somol has suggested that diagrams ‘operate precisely between the form and the word’ – which is perhaps why they are so useful for communicating ideas to clients during the building design process. What is the purpose of architectural diagrams? Architectural diagrams can be said to have different functions depending on when and how they are used. In the early stages of the design process, they are often used to aid thinking and help architects solve problems.