ground plan 
noun
1The plan of a building at ground level.Even simple things such as the layout of the buildings or ground plans of the cages would be of great interest when trying to understand the conditions in which animals were kept, and where they were in relation to the house....
- Amongst the remains are parts of the defences and city walls, the theatre, a hypocausted building, and ground plans of excavated shops and town houses.
- Solicitors get the ground plans but not the building or internal drawings.
1.1The general outline or basis of a scheme: the constitution has become the ground plan of a social welfare state...
- We had a ground plan that was taking form, and I would have laid my stars on the table if necessary to get that plan implemented.
- I had prepared a few moves in my head by reading the first scene after having studied the ground plan again last night.
- If there is one piece which touches genius, it is Virginia Woolf's ‘Illness’, a detailed analysis of how our idea of sickness has become the ground plan of our whole perception of how we live.