The Process of Design: Construction Documents
Construction Documents serve two purposes: to apply for (and receive) a building permit from the city or other local authority and to construct the building.
Although the design of the building doesn’t change between those two uses, we generally prepare two sets of drawings for the two purposes – the Permit Set and the Issue for Construction Set – so that we don’t provide unnecessary information to either party. The contractor won’t care about the life safety occupancy count, for example, and the building inspector isn’t interested in the way a decorative built in element is detailed. For clarity we prepare two separate sets from the common pool of final design information. The drawings below will be found in one or both.
What belongs in the Construction Documents Drawing Set
Regardless of the building type or design, a drawing set follows a consistent pattern – to help permit officials, contractors and other members of the construction industry easily navigate the ocean of information that’s associated with each design. The drawings below are what you can expect to find in any complete construction documents set.
The Cover Sheet contains all sorts of information that orients the project, names and contact information for the architect and engineering consultants, detailed information about the property, the zoned use, the building type, and the city pin number, a site map showing the location in the city and a code matrix showing all the applicable regulations.
The Accessibility Notes and Details sheet shows a bunch of different details that appear all over a publicly accessible building, showing reach ranges, door widths and size and location of important signage.
The Life Safety Plan(s) sheet breaks space down into different use types so that an Total Occupancy can be calculated and used to ensure the building has the right number and size of exits in case of emergency. It also shows the paths of travel to exits from the most remote parts of the building. Safety first!
The Floor Plan sheets are the coordinated center of the set.
In addition to showing a general overview of where every element of the building will be located (with detailed dimensions) it is filled with keynotes, door, window and wall type tags and other types of callouts to drawings in the set.
To find out what those keynotes and tags are, check out Thursday’s post “Important symbols – a guide” for a complete breakdown of their meanings and importance.
A3 Sheets – Elevations and Sections
Elevations are the flat images of the outside faces of the building. The elevations sheets show heights of existing and new building elements, detail the materials to be applied or preserved on the exterior and are covered with keynotes designating important info about the exterior
AD Sheets – Details
These sheets show details that are standard throughout the building like how one type of flooring transitions to another or the way to construct a new staircase.
S Sheets – Structural Drawings
Provided by a licensed structural engineer, these sheets will contain a plan for each level showing concrete footing information, steel and wood framing locations and sizes, important structural sections and details of any important connections.
M Sheets – Mechanical Drawings
The MEP, or Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing, drawings are often provided by the same engineering company but still break down by discipline. The Mechanical Drawings will show the location and size of any mechanical equipment, the layout of ductwork and specifications for all the different sizes and types of air handling systems.
E sheets – Electrical Drawings
The Electrical set will have sets of drawings showing the locations of all power and data outlets, and those of lights and associated switches. They will specify the appropriate wiring and boxes needed to handle all those lights and power any other equipment.
P sheets – Plumbing Drawings
Plumbing drawings will show the location and size of pipes to provide fresh water and take away waste. They’ll also show vent risers to let sewer air up out of the building safely and without smell.
