All residential buildings, whether leaking condominiums, townhouses or detached single family homes, were all at one time simply ideas or possibilities in someone’s mind. A first attempt to firm up ideas and get something down on paper may have been accomplished by using circles with area or room names indicated. In other words, a “bubble diagram”, like the one shown below, will capture the pictures of the mind 
to create a more tangible reality on a sheet paper. Each floor level could be pondered to review possibilities. The living room, dining area, kitchen, den, entry, stairs and garage are sketched as circles to indicate an arrangement. More like a pencil doodling, than what may eventually become a well-designed home.
These bubbles easily indicate important relationships that are being planned. For example, the den being just off to the right of the front entry in this case. Perhaps intended to accommodate a person working on a computer at home, with the den being the office. Work related visitors are able to gain direct access to the den/office without the need for involvement in the rest of the home.
We could go one better, in this wired-up to work at home arrangement, and add a small powder room “bubble” across the entry foyer. In other words, before there is any need to begin an expensive design layout, room or space relationships can be investigated. It takes little imagination to add “cut-through” access possibilities or doors between bubbles. Two short lines between the entry (entrance hall or foyer) and the den would indicate a single access door into this room. Unless of course an escape door into the living room is required, for some family members to avoid visitors. A single access would be the best arrangement to provide an undisturbed office environment. Bubble layouts are done in minutes, to quickly allow an alternate layout to be considered. For example, if a family or games activity room were added to the layout, it would be best if located to the left of the kitchen, away from the quite office area. Such an arrangement would allow convenient access to the kitchen for drinks and snacks, without trailing drippings and crumbs through the rest of the house. But what about a utility room with washer and dryer? Well of course you can add circles and move others around as you wish to eventually determine a preferred arrangement. It’s the modern version of using sticks in sand, the method used by our long-past ancestors before the advent of paper and writing tools, to perhaps fathom a few possibilities. This simple sort of diagram allows a designer to establish a client’s preferences without the need to begin work on complicated drawings. No need for blueprint reading skills at this point, for these bubble diagrams are intuitively understood.
This is a preliminary draft copy introduction to the article at this time, added during site development.