Construction Documents: The right information to the right people.

Schematic design sets up the general idea for a project and design development focuses and refines it.  Construction documents fill in all the details, and 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. The final set of drawings will specify every element of the project, from the structure to the paint colours.

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 Are Construction Documents?

Construction documents guide all phases of a construction project, from the design process to permitting to the actual building process. Interior designers, contractors, and clients should all make themselves familiar with the architectural, structural, and schematic design documents that accompany each project.

Important of Construction Documents:

A set of construction documents is a set of drawings that we produce during the design development phase of a construction project. For more information about design and build phase, you may refer to : https://www.3-d-interior.com/blog/design-build. Once clients approve the design, we begin working on construction drawings. These documents are essential for various contractors which will follow our lead, including but not limited to carpenters, plumbers, tile-setters, electricians etc. Interior construction documentation sets will give them everything they need to execute the design flawlessly.

Construction documentation is the process of developing, refining and documenting design drawings with additional detailing such as product and material specifications, contract requirements and installation details. Construction documents are often referred to provide essential information for the building design and construction and serve the purpose of building permit application, bidding and construction contract administration. Regardless of the building type or design, we are experts in preparing detailed construction documents that help contractors and construction professionals make sense of the design from a sea of information associated with the project. We utilize BIM to prepare comprehensive and accurate drawing sets for various engineering trades and help communicate the design intent.

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.

1. Cover Sheet:

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.

2. Accessibility Notes and Details:

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.

3. Site Plan:

The Site Plan shows the way of the building sits on the entire property and (for a simple project) also notes any landscaping, concrete work and exit safety requirements of the project. A more complex project might also require a Landscape Plan as well.

4. Life Safety Plan:

The Life Safety Plan sheet breaks space down into different use types so that a 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.

5. Demolition Plan:

The Demolition Plan show the existing state of the building (a vital element for moss: designs since we nearly always work with existing buildings) and is covered with notes for what will need to be removed (and protected/preserved) in order to make way for new construction.

6. Floor Plan:

The Floor Plan sheets are the coordinates of the construction documents 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.

7. Elevations:

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 construction.

8. Section Drawings:

Section Drawings show hypothetical slices right through the center of the building and demonstrate important things like wall and foundation construction, floor-to-floor heights and the height relationships between inside and the ground plane outside.

9. Reflected Ceiling Plan:

The most important is probably the Reflected Ceiling Plan which shows a view up, to the ceiling, instead of down to the floor.  The RCP drawings show different ceiling material types (drywall, plaster, wood cladding, pressed tin, etc) and also the locations of most of the lights.  For the sake of convenience, they typically also show the locations of light switches that will operate all those ceiling mounted lights.

10. Power Plan:

For residential projects (when the services of an electrical engineer aren’t needed) we also provide a Power Plan which shows the location of all the outlets and any data points for cable TV or internet access through the building.  We will note locations for power to all appliances and also convenience outlets for personal devices as needed. 

11. Schedules:

For a Construction Documents drawing set the word “Schedule” means a spreadsheet, not a timeline.  We use them to keep track of the various detailed product information for finish types, for sizes and types of doors and windows, and for any equipment used in kitchens etc. The prepared project schedule shows the spreadsheet listing all the doors in the project with their dimensions, materials, finishes, handles and other notes.