CD's by the pound

[aggockel50321]

The college just received 100% CD's for a 24,000 sq. ft. two story office type building.

85 sheets, excluding fire protection, specification of ~ 400 pages.


In 1947, college built a four story + 2 mezzanines + tower, 61,000 sq ft georgian style library (loaded with arch. detail)

20 sheets, ~80 page specs.

Is this progress???

[bclarch]

It is due in part to how easy it has become to add drawings to a set. When you had to draft things by hand you thought long and hard about whether or not you really wanted to redraw a set of floor plans for the fourth time just so another subsytem could be on it's own sheet. Even with sepias and eradicator it was not a breeze. Now its click, click, save as, and presto another sheet is added to the set. Once again the myth of the paperless office is disproved. Instead of eliminating paper, computers have made it vastly easier to generate paperwork by the pound.

[Andre Baros]

In 1947 (and for many years before that) an architect didn't have to spell out every detail before sending it out to the field nor did he or she have to create a paper trail for every decision on a job for the inevitable lawsuit. Today if you don't draw in the weep holes or the flashing you don't get them built in the field (Mortar between your bricks, that's an extra). Finally, building technology has changed more in the last 50 years than in the 500 before that and the extra drawings reflect the extra coordination that goes into all the new and advanced building systems. We don't have extra sheets because we can but because we have to.

And no we finally have a tool to make it easy.

[Allen Lacy]

And the sad part of it all is that the architect is still getting the same relative pay for having to produce more.

[bclarch]

In 1947 (and for many years before that) an architect didn't have to spell out every detail before sending it out to the field nor did he or she have to create a paper trail for every decision on a job for the inevitable lawsuit. Today if you don't draw in the weep holes or the flashing you don't get them built in the field (Mortar between your bricks, that's an extra). Finally, building technology has changed more in the last 50 years than in the 500 before that and the extra drawings reflect the extra coordination that goes into all the new and advanced building systems. We don't have extra sheets because we can but because we have to.

I agree, but I have ranted about this in enough other posts that I didn't feel like typing it again. :)

Allen makes a good point too but I would also add: same pay with increased liability.

[Scott D Davis]

I talked with a contractor and said that I felt like some of our details would be insulting to a builder, because they explain the most common of building practices. I told him 'I don't want to show you how to nail studs for framing.' He said "Yeah, but if you don't show the nails, I wont use them."

Is this what construction has come to?? It's horrible!

[aggockel50321]

On public work, the term often used around here is "forensic contracting" . Contractors that specialize in spending the majority of their time scouring the docs for loopholes that result in change orders.

A few summers ago in MA, a local paper got a photo of one of the "Big Dig" contractors going thru the Cape Cod Canal in a yacht named "Change Order".

[bclarch]

My brother is also an architect and he works for a large firm that often does government projects. He was working on a government office project that went out for bid. There is a local contracting firm that has a reputation for lowballing their bids and then coming back with change requests for every little thing not explicitly called for in the contract documents. Since government bids are required to be open to all, this firm could not be excluded from the bidder list. They came in with the lowest bid and the government put the project on hold rather than giving the contract to this firm. The project's scope was then changed and the drawings revised so that it could be legally rebid with more detailed documents.

[mlgatzke]

. . . and the Contractors call US idiots. Meanwhile, everyone wonders why Architects have such an adversarial relationship with Contractors.

[Scott D Davis]

We're idiots for putting up with it, and getting paid much less!

[gregcashen]

Going through this right now with a recreation project we did. The contractor we wanted to win the bid (becasue we know him) came in to the bid opening with the lowest bid but he was 2 minutes late because he was still getting bids from subs. The contractor we didn't want to win had the highest bid so he was excluded and the bid went to the middle guy.

Another contractor who we like but did not bid, later told us that the guy that got the bid is worse than the guy we didn't want it to go to. We have found out this is true...he has hit us with so many changes I have lost count. Fortunately for us, our documents were very complete and he is an idiot and can't read plans. He has missed every deadline on the project, tried to sub ****** stain at $10/qt for the high end ($50/qt) finish for exposed marine plywood that we spec'ed. He misunsderstood that the bathroom countertops were custom concrete integral bowls. He poured the stairs wrong...each tread slopes down and the whoe thing had to be ground down to flat and still meet code...at his expense. He didn't read that the masonry was a color item and that all color items have to be submitted for color approval 15 days prior to installation...plain face gray CMU shows up and is promptly rejected the day it is supposed to go up. He had to rush order buff tan split face at his own expense.

The best part is that even though he still calls and hits us with RFI's and change orders, most are rejected because he simply isn't reading the specs...and he is getting fined for not having the items on-site or submitted for approval within 15 days. Needless to say, the relationship has gotten highly adversarial. I guarantee the overall cost of the job goes up for the city because of the delays, and it's all because of the bid process.

..end of rant..

[Paul P.]

Does this sound familiar.

The Architect and the contractor

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realises he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am"

The man below says: "Yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field between 40 & 41 deg. latitude and 120 and 124 deg West longitude"

"You must be an Architect,” says the balloonist.

"I am" replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of absolutely no use to me and I still don't know where I am."

The man below says, "You must be a contractor."

"Well yes" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well", says the man, "You don't know where you are, or where you're going and you've made a promise that you can't keep but now you expect me to solve your problem; and you're in the same position as you were before we met, but now it's my fault." :D

[PeterJ]

That sounds like it might be 'with thanks to Louis Hellman'!

[FK]

The version I heard had a programmer and a manager. Hmmm....