Working drawing management
Outline specification
The case is argued elsewhere in this handbook for a
specification which is an integral part of the production
documentation rather than the afterthought which puzzled
site staff often assume it to have been. If drawings are to
be freed of the detailed written descriptions they are
frequently made to carry, it is implicit that this information
must be conveyed to the contractor by other means.
Indeed, the philosophy of the National Building
Specification is reliant upon the geometry of the building
and of its component parts being covered by the drawings,
with selection from alternative materials and definition of
quality standards being covered by the specification.
It should be noted that some CAD programs specifically
tailored for architects will provide links to NBS
specifications. It can also be helpful to have both a CAD
drawing and NBS text file open at the same time on a
computer, with the designer preparing the specification
in parallel with the drawings.
It is desirable therefore that both drawings and
specification should draw their information from a common
source document and that this document should be
produced before the stage F programme gets under way.
The outline specification is a useful format for this
document, partly because something approaching it will
have been needed by the quantity surveyor for his final
design stage cost check to have any validity.
It consists basically of a check list (CI/SfB elemental
order is a convenient framework) upon which decisions
of construction and materials may be noted as they
are made.
Formalising these decisions into such a document at an
early stage ensures that they are made at the proper level
of experience. Readers of The Honeywood Filewill recall
Ridoppo, the wonder paint that crept off the walls and out
of the house. We have all had our Ridoppos but at least it
ought to be possible to ensure that they are not selected
by the drawing office junior at the last minute because
time was short and nobody had told him any better.Trade literature
The rationalised drawing structure provides a convenient
framework on which to hang manufacturers’ literature.
There is no virtue in redrawing the builders’ work details
printed in Bloggs & Company’s catalogue when a
photocopy or scanned image suitably overcoded with
the job and drawing number will convey the information
more cheaply and accurately. (Bloggs & Company are
not likely to object to the resultant wider distribution of
their literature.) Indeed, a number of manufacturers will
provide the architect with CDs of their products, for
incorporation into their CAD drawings.Manufacturers’ trade literature should always be
reproduced with caution. If there is an error in the
manufacturers’ literature and this is reproduced in the
architect’s own drawing, who is responsible if a
manufacturer corrects an error in a data-sheet but the
architect does not update his drawing based on that
data-sheet – who is liable?However, in any case the literature which it is known will
be required, if only as source documents for one’s own
drawings, should be assembled early in the day. It can
be frustrating to interrupt work on a detail to telephone
for urgently needed trade literature and then wait two or
three days for its arrival (5.4).Library of standard details
Many practices attempt, at some point in their existence,
to crystallise the accumulated wisdom and experience of
the practice into a set of standard details, only to find with
increasing disillusionment as they proceed, that not nearly
so much is really standard as was at first supposed, and
that the very existence of a standard drawing which is
nearly (but not quite) applicable to the project in hand is a
dangerous inducement to compromise.