Defying the Time-Space Continuum

I don't know if you realized it - but Friday night the earth stood still.  For a brief moment in time, their was world peace.  At least at my house!  I was in an alternate universe where the Interior Designer and General Contractor were actually working together for the common good.

We were going through a set of drawings Paul was pricing.  He was trying to get the price back into the client's budget.  For example, the project has 90 doors - the specified door frame is $150, the slab $350, and the hardware was $500 per door/opening.  We were surprised that all offices had doors - when the trend is 'open/transparency.'  NOTE:  Some personal offices do need doors - but not all offices in this particular building would require doors.

We were looking at the number of bathroom fixtures.  Doing the basic occupancy load calculations - the 50,000 SQFT space needed 11 water closets for just the women!  It seemed excessive for the number of actual staff of about 100 to 150 people.  I am curious what the actual occupant load calculated by the architect was - the numbers weren't on the CDs I was looking at.

I have always felt that the Designer and General Contractor should sit down and go through the drawings together.  Paul had marked up most of the detail drawing pages.  The detail/elevation tags on the detail pages didn't always match what was tagged on the plans.  So Paul couldn't 'see' what the designer was doing or trying to explain.  I could 'see' what and where the detail drawings were showing.  So I was able to talk Paul through it - so he could then actually 'see' what was going on.  Making it easier for him to deconstruct and price accordingly.  

In the real world, in the last 10 years the amount of time a General Contractor has to look over and price a building has gone from a couple of weeks to 'needed the price last week.'  The same is true for Architects and Interior Designers - everything has to be done last week, so we glance at the drawings as they go out the door - hopefully to the right client.

So in my little part of the world on Friday night - the earth did stand still, there was world peace, and Santa was able to put us back on the 'Nice' list.  The Interior Designer and General Contractor played well together, with no fighting!!

I learned that the really cool rooms with-in rooms we LOVE to incorporate into all of our commercial design projects are actually a Fire Protection NIGHTMARE!  You have to put sprinkler heads above the structure as well as inside the small room - plus you can only have a certain percentage of run-off or 'trapping' of fire suppressant.  Not to mention - what happens if the fire suppression system has some kind of leak - you have to think about adding drainage.  So Paul has pretty much squashed any of my design dreams involving the room with-in a room trend.  That's OK though - I would furious if my award-winning design was ruined by unanticipated sprinkler heads.

FURNITURE MANUFACTUERS WITH CAD

It can be a pain on projects to determine what furniture manufacturers provide CAD drawings through their websites that students can use instantly and for free. I have created a list of some for future reference:

http://www.blastation.com/
http://www.livingdivani.it/EN/Home.aspx
http://www.hermanmiller.com/
http://www.knoll.com/
http://www.lammhults.se/
http://www.encoreseating.com/
http://bretford.com/
http://www.coalesse.com/
http://www.hbf.com/Pages/Home.aspx
http://www.hightoweraccess.com/
http://www.bebitalia.com/