dimensions of buildings

[piper28]

Are there any good websites for finding out dimensions of buildings etc?

[david_scrivener]

What kind of buildings?

You'll have to be a lot more specific if anyone here is going to be able to help.

Do you mean dimensions of real buildings or toy buildings?

If toy buildings, any particular (toy/model) manufacturers in mind?

Sizes/scales/level of reality may even vary in the range of toy/model buildings of a single manufacturer because they have to operate within the realities of what customers can afford to buy or space to store and/or display.

To give two extreme examples of what I mean, consider pig stys and castles, both buildings which have been reproduced in toy/model form for many decades (over a century in the case of toy castles).

A real traditional pig sty (the hut & run sort, as made in grey plastic by Britains for many years) is a small building, so can be represented quite realistically in toy/model form.

Real castles are huge! An accurate scale model of any of the UK's real castles in Britains scale (1/32) would need a large room to house it, and no way would be affordable or practical as a nursery toy or even as a display backdrop for adult collectors of old toy/model soldiers etc. This is why toy manufacturers have had to be very, ahem, 'imaginative' in designing toy castles which gave 'an impression of castleyness' (almost certainly not a real word, but illustrates my point), while at the same time has certain key parts, such as doors, gates, and battlement walkways, for the  toy soldiers/knights

they were intended to accomodate.   

[Deere-est]

Just make them up Mark. There's no set pattern to many buildings as they are often built into a space. Although for modern buildings you can just follow a modular design of bays, most being twenty foot, some smaller, some bigger.  Spans can vary even more depending on usage and roof loading.  I have a beef shed in the farm layou section and a dairy house in customs for sale which I built for Tim Coombes. Have a look and if you want any help or some tips, just fire me a PM.

[david_scrivener]

Clearly my post, which dealt with commercially made toy/model buildings (& I only collect very old commercially manufactured toy farm buildings, many made in the 1930s), and Deere-est's post, which dealt with making your own buildings for dioramas, covered two entirely different sectors of the hobby covered by this site.

Which is most relevent to you?

Rather confirms the first line of my initial post, you should have been a bit more specific in the first place.

[piper28]

Thanks for comments.  The building i would like to make is a modern cubicle shed with adjoining calf house.  I would like to use the agri gio cubicle range perhaps unless i can come up with a cheaper alternative to good looking cubicles.  I would also like to use HLT feed barriers as they are the best i've seen (manufactured).

I just wondered if there were any specific hight requirements ie how high should the wall be from ground level and then what should the total length and height of the overall building be.  I thought there was maybe a general rule of thumb for these things. 

I am very new (this would be my first building) to this sort of thing.

[david_scrivener]

Now clearly one for Deere-est, not me.

All I can add, relating back to my comments about toy/model castles, is that you will probably have to make it to some kind of compromise between an accurate true to scale building and something which is small enough to reasonably fit in whatever space you have available in your diorama. It might be a good idea to make some very rough mock-ups first (cut up cardboard boxes?), and see how they look when Britains (or whatever) cattle and calves are placed inside, before you start making the final building. 

[piper28]

Thanks David.

I will buy a couple of feed barriers from HLT and use the cows and figures i have to work something out.  I can appreciate what you say.