Does anybody have any advice, experience with quality control on drawings? Obviously we are all human and things do and will slip through the cracks. I am early in my career and am always hesitant to send drawings out the door regardless of how many times I review them. Its nice to have another set of eyes to review plans for structure concerns, code, fire protection ect. Anybody have any suggestions, maybe asking other architects for a fee? Thanks
Quite a few government agencies have drawing quality review checklists that you can find online and adapt into something you can use within your own office.
I've seen outside architects paid to review another firm's work on gigantic projects, but not so much on smaller scale stuff.
If you can find someone like a really skilled and seasoned retired architect in your community who will come in for a few hours to check your work, that would be ideal. The thing to beware of is people who spend a lot of your time and money criticizing the way you do things rather than strictly focusing on just locating any errors and omissions.
Sometimes architects and clients pay for an Accessibility review from a 3rd party due to the liability associated with non compliance with FHA and ADA. This is done on projects from large and small firms. It can be good to spread the liability out if there is risk of future litigation.
The good firms I have worked for tend to keep a list of previous errors and omissions and use them as a training tool.
We practice architecture, we don't do architecture, we have to keep working towards the perfect set of drawings but perfect is not possible when you have a deadline and budget for the design phase of a project.
What makes an error worse is when the designer fights and or attempts to shift blame for the error instead of owning it, apologizing and fixing it promptly. Ego should not be the cause in a delay in fixing errors in drawings. Errors will happen as buildings and codes are more complex then ever before. Do your best to not be the cause of a delay in a project and recognize that the whole project team is working towards building a project that is compliant, within budget / schedule and best fulfills the client's needs.
There are firms out there that are specialized and do this. You can even hire the ICC itself to run a plan review.
Normally, the firms are engineering firms doing construction admin as owner reps, testing, value engineering exercises, quality assurance and peer review services as well as plan reviews. They'll have architects as well on staff; like what I'm doing (which btw; pays a lot better than normal architecture stuff).
The normal clientele seems to be on the client side like investor groups and larger sophisticated GC's as part of their own risk assessment on large projects.
I used to work at a firm that did drawing reviews. You had between a week and two to go through the set and make your mark-ups. A good half of your mark-ups are totally ignored by the architect, another third are responded with "are you sure this is code?" even though we were required to say "per IBC 2012 section xx.x.xx.x.x.x.x.1" in our notes. *shrug* Now and then we had an architect who really appreciated it, but by the time we received the drawings (from the lender) permit was way past and bids were typically just in or almost in. What architect wants to receive a 8-15 page list of code violations and waterproofing issues a couple days before bid day...
Interesting.. Thanks for the feedback. My current projects are very small and a retired architect would be ideal. Just trying to mitigate any issues that may pop up down there road that will eat up time and money after payment has been received.
we have internal and external peer reviews for all projects. internal reviews check for graphical and design while external review big picture items like will this actual work
May 3, 18 4:09 pm ·
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Construction Drawing Review
Does anybody have any advice, experience with quality control on drawings? Obviously we are all human and things do and will slip through the cracks. I am early in my career and am always hesitant to send drawings out the door regardless of how many times I review them. Its nice to have another set of eyes to review plans for structure concerns, code, fire protection ect. Anybody have any suggestions, maybe asking other architects for a fee? Thanks
Quite a few government agencies have drawing quality review checklists that you can find online and adapt into something you can use within your own office.
I've seen outside architects paid to review another firm's work on gigantic projects, but not so much on smaller scale stuff.
If you can find someone like a really skilled and seasoned retired architect in your community who will come in for a few hours to check your work, that would be ideal. The thing to beware of is people who spend a lot of your time and money criticizing the way you do things rather than strictly focusing on just locating any errors and omissions.
Sometimes architects and clients pay for an Accessibility review from a 3rd party due to the liability associated with non compliance with FHA and ADA. This is done on projects from large and small firms. It can be good to spread the liability out if there is risk of future litigation.
The good firms I have worked for tend to keep a list of previous errors and omissions and use them as a training tool.
We practice architecture, we don't do architecture, we have to keep working towards the perfect set of drawings but perfect is not possible when you have a deadline and budget for the design phase of a project.
What makes an error worse is when the designer fights and or attempts to shift blame for the error instead of owning it, apologizing and fixing it promptly. Ego should not be the cause in a delay in fixing errors in drawings. Errors will happen as buildings and codes are more complex then ever before. Do your best to not be the cause of a delay in a project and recognize that the whole project team is working towards building a project that is compliant, within budget / schedule and best fulfills the client's needs.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Keeping a list of previous errors and omissions sounds like liability lawsuit bait, as it establishes a history of failure.
There are firms out there that are specialized and do this. You can even hire the ICC itself to run a plan review.
Normally, the firms are engineering firms doing construction admin as owner reps, testing, value engineering exercises, quality assurance and peer review services as well as plan reviews. They'll have architects as well on staff; like what I'm doing (which btw; pays a lot better than normal architecture stuff).
The normal clientele seems to be on the client side like investor groups and larger sophisticated GC's as part of their own risk assessment on large projects.
I used to work at a firm that did drawing reviews. You had between a week and two to go through the set and make your mark-ups. A good half of your mark-ups are totally ignored by the architect, another third are responded with "are you sure this is code?" even though we were required to say "per IBC 2012 section xx.x.xx.x.x.x.x.1" in our notes. *shrug* Now and then we had an architect who really appreciated it, but by the time we received the drawings (from the lender) permit was way past and bids were typically just in or almost in. What architect wants to receive a 8-15 page list of code violations and waterproofing issues a couple days before bid day...
Interesting.. Thanks for the feedback. My current projects are very small and a retired architect would be ideal. Just trying to mitigate any issues that may pop up down there road that will eat up time and money after payment has been received.
we have internal and external peer reviews for all projects. internal reviews check for graphical and design while external review big picture items like will this actual work
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