Construction documents have many audiences.

 

When I am working on a set of construction documents, I have to keep in mind that many different parties will be looking at them, each looking for different information. There are four primary parties to keep in mind, though some of these are actually composed of different entities themselves, and some projects require even more eyes on the plans.

 

 

The first party is the most important: you, the client. Most of my information is conveyed during the design process (“Schematic design” and “Design Development”) but the construction documents should be readable to the layman as well. My drawings are free of jargon and arcane abbreviations (many architects have an entire section of the Notes page devoted to identifying abbreviations), and efficiently drawn so that you aren’t looking through pages of technical drawings that the contractors ignore anyway. Everything that we discussed in the design process is somewhere in there and should be easy to find.

 

The second person I am speaking to through drawings is my structural engineer, if I am using one.  Although I discuss the project with him before sending him the design development set, the odds are that he is going to be working on this at night or when it is inconvenient to have a conversation. The clearer my design intent is, the easier his job is, and the clearer the structural design will be. He doesn’t care about the tile in the bathroom, but he has to understand what the ceiling height is and where we do NOT want a bulkhead or a post. 

 

The third person is the general contractor who is going to build the darn thing. Coming from a commercial background, I entered the residential world with the attitude that one should document the hell out of every possible variation of a detail so that the GC could not claim that a particular condition was not defined.  Well that’s a different world than this one. The reality is that the residential contractors I work with know what they are doing, have done things many times, and are going to ignore anything they don’t recognize (and generally don’t need to).  It should also be noted that the guys who are on site– the guys who are actually doing the work– are looking for simple clear instruction, and that is what I provide, primarily through pictures and supplemented with fulsome notes and specs to make sure that quality products and means & methods are in order. 

 

Fourth comes the annoying one– the county or city officials who review the drawings and issue the permit. Not surprisingly, the one entity with no skin in the game is the one with the most control.  I am proud to say that over the years I’ve had more than one reviewer tell me that they really liked my drawings, that the information they needed was easy to find and understand. Of course, they still usually have comments that need to be addressed…that’s just how they do.  

 

 

In the end, the only product that matters is your house. A clean, concise, accurate set of drawings is the best way to get there.