Architecture

[iceman]

acinpdx, it pretty routinely happens that when you build a very custom house you can't get your money out of it when you sell, especially if you don't keep it for a long time. You put in exactly what you liked, but it's difficult to find someone else who likes exactly the same things, it really just makes sense.

[babybear]

I'll probably regret posting this, but here is the house I'm talking about.

so you traded that in for a nice studio in Jackson? tee hee jk

[::: :::]

acinpdx, it pretty routinely happens that when you build a very custom house you can't get your money out of it, especially if you don't keep it for a long time. You put in exactly what you liked, but it's difficult to find someone else who likes exactly the same things, it really just makes sense.

yeah, not confused about that
i talk about that with clients all the time

[riser4]

One kitchen in particular where I worked was designed by an architect. It looked nice. It had no flow and therefore it was a pain in the ass to work in. Cooks had to get in each others way to do their tasks. However, to be fair, when cooks just throw a bunch of stuff in a space, it usually ends up being a death trap. The former at least had plenty of fire exits.

[highangle]

From another site...

skwyd said: ↑

I asked the architect why he would bother drawing them in CAD if he wasn't going to place them where the buildings actually were. He said it was "common practice" to do this. I then asked him if he realized that all of the civil design for the utilities and the concrete flatwork and grading and pretty much everything else that wasn't done by the architect had been designed using the CAD layout. He said that wasn't supposed to be done that way and that the printed plans were what would control the site layout.

I got off the phone and called the engineer at my office to explain what was going on. We pulled off the site and construction halted until the entire site was redesigned with corrected CAD drawings.

Every since then I have lovingly referred to architect plans as "crayon drawings" because that's about how good they tend to be.

ChristopherABrown said: ↑

That is downright scary.

Makes me REAL glad I do not use auto-cad cogo. Makes me wonder how many times I avoided a similar situation by reloading plan dimensions into cogo, because I had to. What that arch refers to as "common practice", I've never heard of. Although when I think of it, I do remember a few times trying to scale non dimensioned things off of a cad site plan to find it didn't match the stated dimensions. I'll be warning my partner who does use auto-cad about this one. ...

R.L.Parsons said: ↑

The paper rules in court, and CAD in the hands of those not geared to real world dimensions is only used to produce the paper.

I did a small amphitheater years ago and knew within minutes what the intent was, and that the CAD drawing was not right. It was a radial foundation layout, overall delta angle was easily divided to show 12° of arc to hit the centerline of each foundation and the radii increasing by 16' to each pile cap.

The CAD drawing was close, but no chord from centerline to centerline matched. Some were out by a few tenths, some by feet. A quick call to the contractor's engineer confirmed the red iron to span cap to cap was indeed ordered in consistent lengths, so the intent was the cap centerlines be equidistant.

A few hundred emails later and after kicking over a MASSIVE beehive we were instructed A) No paper sets with dimensions would be provided. All work was to be done from the electronic data. B) No RFI's were to be submitted relating to inconsistencies in dimension, build what the CAD file tells you to build.
C) Materials were the province of the contractor, not any of the peon subs.

I was specifically told in a contractor's meeting to do my job and don't stick my nose into what everyone else was doing. I asked him (the general contractor's project manager) if he would sign and date a handwritten note to that effect. He responded, with pleasure.

I faxed a copy to our HR department and long story short, was on my way to another project the next morning, as the bosses determined while I may be right, didn't want to keep me there, as I had ruffled feathers all the way up the food chain. The guy they sent to take my place quickly came to the same conclusion I had, talked with him on the phone may times over the next few weeks.

He did what he was instructed to do, used the coords generated from the CAD files for stakeout, and documented it every step of the way.

The resulting lawsuit stretched for two years, and the end of the story was, our company was able to prove without a doubt we had identified the problem early, attempted to resolve the problem beyond reasonable due diligence, and had fulfilled our contractual obligations even though we knew they were in error.

What all shook out in the wash was, the architect was specifically contracted to provide a dimensionally correct digital file. He lost his license when it was determined he had acted outside his professional abilities, as that was the realm of the engineer. Their own freakin' BOR acknowledges they can't produce a mathematically correct product!

Just sharing.

[Buster Highmen]

We've been working on a house for a few years now and the guy who designed it and engineered it has become a great friend. I had previous bad experiences with architects and wasn't too thrilled about doing a custom build, but this guy was awesome in every way. Same with the contractor.

Weird huh?

Turns out this architect got admitted to Yale Architecture program out of high school, but didn't do it for lack of funds.

So, once again, YMMV.

[Gepeto]

more thread centering...

I’ve had an architect in my office for 32 years come September. He needed an office and reception and I needed his skills for about 10% of his output. It’s always been a good arrangement.

Lots of truth’s in this thread. There are asshole architects and shitty architects and good architects. ime, architects over cook load capacities by generous margins to cover their ass because they are more aesthetic driven and prefer to be called out on overdone than underdone.

Unless of course you get the guy who has a long litigious trail of failures and his seal is up for grabs to the highest bidder and will stamp a dinner napkin.

Having said that, the guygirl sitting in a cube on the 20^th floor with 10 more cube jockeys does not give a shit one way or the other. The bigger the project the more likely personalities are going to enter the dynamic and create shit.


Nothing worse than an uppity GC/SUB/CM whose shit is a nicer color than everyone else’s. Just makes everyone ornery and productivity and workmanship plummets. othing but a hassle no matter your perspective.

My friend and office butt buddy was in a horrible car accident on 06-18 and in a comma for 4 wks. Five surgeries and now in a rehab center learning how to brush his teeth again.

Anyone looking for office space and enough work to cover the rent?

[Below Zero]

highangle - what in the hell is "skwyd" talking about when he says "them"? Also, what is all this talk about a CAD drawing versus a paper drawing; I don't get it.

[highangle]

highangle - what in the hell is "skwyd" talking about when he says "them"? Also, what is all this talk about a CAD drawing versus a paper drawing; I don't get it.

He sounds like a bit of a rookie. (Probably a tech rather than a Professional Liability aSsumer...) Most surveyors encounter problems like this on a regular basis, which is why they don't wait a half day before they start checking themselves...

skwyd said: ↑

I try to be positive in my mindset and give people the benefit of the doubt. And I try to remember that as a Land Surveyor, I am probably in a much better position to understand the importance of things like boundary lines, easements, grade differentials, and so on, than an architect (or even an engineer).

I really do try to remember these things, yet it is stupid stuff like these stories here that make it so hard to remember these things.

I think my "favourite" architect story was when I was staking a school site. It was a brand new middle school on the outskirts of a smaller town in my home county. My office technician had gotten the CAD files from the architect and then moved and rotated the drawings to be on the actual boundary coordinates (which had previously been provided to the architect at their request) and also scaled it by the factor of 12 to get it into feet... Anyway, we calculated up some coordinates for the building envelopes so that we could go out and stake the pads for rough grading. An easy job and should only take about half a day. The grading contractor was onsite and ready to roll right behind us so we got out there early and jumped right in.

We had all 6 buildings staked and offset and put some cuts on the lath and I thought, "Let's pull a cloth tape between these stakes and make sure we're matching with the plan dimensions." That's always a good check to make sure that you didn't bust your setup.

I measured between the first two buildings and got 28', the plans said 30'. I thought that was odd, but I moved on to another check. I measured 30' but the plans said 50'. Between two other buildings, I missed the plan dimension by 13'. It was all over the place! I told the grading foreman about the problem and he said he'd hold off until I sorted things out.

First, I reset up the instrument, rechecked my backsight and then rechecked a couple control point shots. Everything was checking spot on. I then ran around shooting the corners we had staked and everyone was hitting correctly. I then set up on a different site control point, backsight, checked my control, and rechecked the stakes. It was all green lights.

So then, I called in to the office and talked to my tech. He pulled up the CAD files and checked and doubled checked the coordinates of the control points, the building corners, and all of that. I was convinced that my points on the ground matched the CAD files.

Then, for some reason, I asked my tech to measure the distance between the buildings. That's when I realized the issue. The distances in CAD matched what I had pulled with a cloth tape just fine. But the distances in CAD didn't match the distances that were shown on the plans!

So I called the architect directly after that. I explained what had happened and asked why the dimensions didn't match what was measured in CAD. I was told that the CAD files were "schematic only" and that the actual distances on the plans were what was intended to control the building placement.

I asked the architect why he would bother drawing them in CAD if he wasn't going to place them where the buildings actually were. He said it was "common practice" to do this. I then asked him if he realized that all of the civil design for the utilities and the concrete flatwork and grading and pretty much everything else that wasn't done by the architect had been designed using the CAD layout. He said that wasn't supposed to be done that way and that the printed plans were what would control the site layout.

I got off the phone and called the engineer at my office to explain what was going on. We pulled off the site and construction halted until the entire site was redesigned with corrected CAD drawings.

Every since then I have lovingly referred to architect plans as "crayon drawings" because that's about how good they tend to be.

....but the other asshole schooled him on what customarily holds up in court. Were I RL Parsons' boss though, I too have pulled him off that job for behaving in less than a professional manner. Wetting pants and being unpleasant likely wasn't in his job description.

[highangle]

So let me get this straight. The construction drawings say 50 feet. The cad file, which is not part of the contract documents, is some other dimension. And the surveyor thought the right thing to do was ignore the printed drawings and go by the CAD file? Were the printed dimensions wrong and couldn't be laid out as drawn?

The "problem" in this story was not the architect or his documents.

(I will admit that the CAD file part is an annoyance for folks who are professional, but that story is so one-sided, its silly.)

Wasn't trying for a high standard of journalism. But somehow, this guy or his employers were under the impression the cad files contained actual data pertinent to the job. They looked bad because of it. They evidently should have known to disregard any supplied electronic media from an architect and instead key in everything off the paper construction plans and take any missing dims up through channels before they commenced.



The thread I got that from makes the entire profession of land surveying look bad, BTW, by the low quality of response. I copied it because I don't have time to share my personal experiences with architects. In short, some of my best friends are architects, but some of my bigger operational and professional headaches have been caused by architects. Also, my dogs growl at architects, but they won't tolerate a landscape architect at all.

[brice618]

I asked the architect why he would bother drawing them in CAD if he wasn't going to place them where the buildings actually were. He said it was "common practice" to do this. I then asked him if he realized that all of the civil design for the utilities and the concrete flatwork and grading and pretty much everything else that wasn't done by the architect had been designed using the CAD layout. He said that wasn't supposed to be done that way and that the printed plans were what would control the site layout.

That's actually more common than I figured it would be. Almost all of our consultants redraw based on dimensions we provide our plans. It's silly because we're very careful to actually draw real world dimensions wherever possible, but they've been burned too many times by other designers and won't use any cad work.

My dad, also and architect, told me they used to do that fairly often at the end of jobs when manually drafting where something would change and you couldn't get it redrawn before the deadline.

[Tippster]

One kitchen in particular where I worked was designed by an architect. It looked nice. It had no flow and therefore it was a pain in the ass to work in. Cooks had to get in each others way to do their tasks.

Which is ridiculous because the idea of a "work triangle" in a kitchen isn't new. We are actually basing the plans of our upcoming kitchen/dining room remodel on various configurations of dual triangles in the space given.

That's actually more common than I figured it would be. Almost all of our consultants redraw based on dimensions we provide our plans. It's silly because we're very careful to actually draw real world dimensions wherever possible, but they've been burned too many times by other designers and won't use any cad work...

Is there a real reason why CAD drawings cannot match the paper ones? Also, why the fuck aren't professionals using the Metric system instead of all these stupid fractions?

[::: :::]

Is there a real reason why CAD drawings cannot match the paper ones? Also, why the fuck aren't professionals using the Metric system instead of all these stupid fractions?

There is a legal precedent for words over shapes. So, industry standard is that you don't measure off drawings and use the words printed as your building directive. And, subsequently most drawings sets verbalized this somewhere in the general notes.

Back in the day, it was easier to "force a dimension" by writing it in instead of spending hours redrafting it. We still do it at the last second to get drawing sets out the door. It has become harder to do with parametric drafting systems though (BIM).

Re: metric: I think GSA projects are supposed to be in metric. No American materials are available in metric units. I've done metric projects and they just use the metric equivalent of the material 5/8 gyp bd is 19mm, etc, etc.

[Tippster]

Huh. My impression is wife's guys actually use a ruler and measure her drawings in the field, then go by that (and most of those drawings are generated in CAD.) Is that not common, or am I misinterpreting what they're doing?

[brice618]

Generally, contractors and architects alike want dimensions. It's quicker, easier, dumber. There can be a big significance to an inch which is extremely easy to scale incorrectly off a plan. The thickness of most lines would take up enough play to not provide any real accuracy.

That said, some details do get scaled, and I've done plenty of scaling on as-built drawings to get building on paper before we go field verify.

[riser4]

Which is ridiculous because the idea of a "work triangle" in a kitchen isn't new. We are actually basing the plans of our upcoming kitchen/dining room remodel on various configurations of dual triangles in the space given.

No shit. Not a work triangle in site. We made our own. And it was ugly.

[Flounder]

Re: metric: I think GSA projects are supposed to be in metric. No American materials are available in metric units. I've done metric projects and they just use the metric equivalent of the material 5/8 gyp bd is 19mm, etc, etc.

I work with GSA every day and have never seen a metric plan. Most of the time it's impossible to get any sort of accurate plan from them. When I was at the landscape architect we did metric for several international jobs. No CAD at that office though, ink on vellum.

Still not sure what the surveyors rant is. Plenty of shitty surveyors out there. I've seen at least 2 foundations laid out in the wrong place by the surveyor so it's not like all architects are incompetent and all surveyors are awesome.

As mentioned earlier, lots of times it is quicker to force a dimension than change the underlying document, particularly when it's a details extracted from a model. 2 minutes to change a minor dimension or 2 hours to change the model and extract the information. However if my engineer wants a CAD file, they will get an accurate file. When I get it back I will scale it by 12 to get it back to real world dimensions and I'll try and clean it up so everything isn't on a single layer !

[char]

Is there a real reason why CAD drawings cannot match the paper ones? Also, why the fuck aren't professionals using the Metric system instead of all these stupid fractions?

No, but it's really easy to "measure" something in CAD and then input a different number.

Do you know carpenters, plumbers, welders, hell any trade in the US that routinely works in metric? I'd love to work in metric, so much easier.

[char]

Still not sure what the surveyors rant is. Plenty of shitty surveyors out there. I've seen at least 2 foundations laid out in the wrong place by the surveyor so it's not like all architects are incompetent and all surveyors are awesome.

There is an entire building at Oregon State that is in the wrong place (by a few feet) because of a surveying error.

Recently worked on a job where US feet and International Survey feet caused quite an issue.

[Tippster]

No, but it's really easy to "measure" something in CAD and then input a different number.

Do you know carpenters, plumbers, welders, hell any trade in the US that routinely works in metric? I'd love to work in metric, so much easier.

I don't, but it seems to me that if mechanics can slowly get used to a dual system (that hopefully eventually gets all metric) then why shouldn't other trades?

[char]

I don't, but it seems to me that if mechanics can slowly get used to a dual system (that hopefully eventually gets all metric) then why shouldn't other trades?

Mixing units on a construction site is alot different than having different size bolts and wrenches. Pretty easy to have someone layout something 100 ft that is supposed to be 100m.

Why mix? Just leads to an error prone system. NASA can attest to that fact. Smashed a probe into Mars because of it. Smartest people on the planet probably.

[Tippster]

I understand that there are some engines these days that mix Metric and SAE and think that's stupid. A good mechanic can work on US cars (SAE) and Euro cars (Metric.) I'm sure they would prefer simply changing to one standard, and since the world standard is metric....

[teleee]

I don't, but it seems to me that if mechanics can slowly get used to a dual system (that hopefully eventually gets all metric) then why shouldn't other trades?

Way more complicated than that. Its been tried and failed miserably. When you are talking tolerances in the fraction of an inch and converting material that is made in existing molds or forms to specific inches (such as the already referred to 5/8" plywood) the resulting conversion errors combined with allowable construction and fabrication tolerances leads to a compounding nightmare of shit not fitting the architects fancy bim model.

[char]

I understand that there are some engines these days that mix Metric and SAE and think that's stupid. A good mechanic can work on US cars (SAE) and Euro cars (Metric.) I'm sure they would prefer simply changing to one standard, and since the world standard is metric....

And all that mechanic has to do is make sure he pulls the right wrench out of the bin or puts the right size bolt in the hole. No conversions, etc

[teleee]

And all that mechanic has to do is make sure he pulls the right wrench out of the bin or puts the right size bolt in the hole. No conversions, etc

Exactly, and the mechanic is pretty much dealing with one material (steel), whereas a building is combining a plethora of different materials with their combined properties, characteristics and resultant tolerances.