Architectural Construction Drawings – An introduction
Architectural Construction Drawings are required for onsite construction purposes. These drawings present the most intricate details that are required for onsite construction. These drawings are usually completed during the design and development stage after the planning drawings are approved.
Architectural CD Sets are also known as working drawing sets. These drawing lay emphasis on what needs to be built and the process that needs to be followed. It is very important to understand the local building standards and codes before working on Architectural Construction Drawings projects. It is very important to hire an experienced and reputed Architectural firm to accomplish this particular phase. Right from the placement of the details to the actual construction or installation of equipment’s, CD Sets are required at every stage. The reason why there is a requirement of a skilled and qualified Architect is because Construction Drawing creation process varies according to the understanding of an Architect. Hence an Architect with mediocre experience of expertise can actually destroy the whole process and the builder ends up spending a lot of money with unnecessary delays in construction.
The current trend of developing Architectural working drawings consists of much more details with different views or sheets created for each details. The standard practices also include the notes and also create standard documents that are attached to the working drawings.
Some important drawings constituting an Architectural Drawing Sets
Architectural Floor Plan: Floor Plans present a detailed layout of an entire floor of a building structure. It is the basic sheet in an Architectural working drawing set. It shows the overall space planning providing a good idea of how space is distributed in any building structure. Floor plans consists of walls, doors, windows, stair locations, wall accessories, furniture etc. depending on the client requirements. Some Architects based on their experience and expertise give a floor plan and furniture plans separately. They also provide a detail sheet with all details separately for better presentation of construction information during onsite construction
Sections: Sections provides with the details through a vertical cut plane and presents details in a better way. Section views are wee different from the floor plan as they are presented within bold line and the sections are more detailed views than floor plans. Section drawings also explain the correlation between different levels in the building. It gets very difficult to understand the levels and other factors such as height from the plans alone. Accurate Section details are very important to achieve high quality construction drawings. Sections are also known as cross sections.
Elevations: Elevations basically represent the different sides of a building. There are usually 4 elevations in any Construction Drawing Set. Façade or front elevation, Rear Elevation, Side elevation 1 & 2. These are exterior elevations and there can be interior elevations too in the Construction Drawing sets that represent the interior details. Elevations usually represent the exterior detailing part including the façade details, canopies etc. Elevation drawings are extremely important in developing kitchen details or bathroom details. Without the interior elevations we cannot work with the kitchen furniture such as cabinets, wall mounts, fixtures etc. To detail a bathroom, we need to have the interior elevations showing the bathroom. Drawing the elevations help us identify the intricate details of any fixture or furniture that needs to be installed
Reflected Ceiling plans: RCP or Reflected ceiling plans is one of the most important part of the Construction Drawing Set. It basically presents the ceiling layout completely with all MEP fixtures. RCP is very important for placement of MEP components too. All the lighting fixtures, Fire protection fixtures such as sprinklers, smoke detectors etc. are placed on the ceiling and cannot be detailed without the Reflected Ceiling Plan drawings.
Roof Plans: Roof plans represent the layout of the roofs placed on a building. This plan contains the details and information about all fixtures, components etc. placed on the roof. Roof plan consists of details based on the complexity of the roof structure. These drawings also form base for the structural detailing and MEP Drawings.
Site Plan: These drawings provide a complete overview of an overall building site. This includes the levels, contours, a top view of the building placed on site, parking, landscape details, neighboring buildings etc. Site plan can later be converted into 3D Renderings too for a better presentation of the overall building site.
Detail sheets: Detail sheets consists of the general and specific details such as joinery details, components, furniture details such as cabinetry details etc. Detail sheets can be different sheets for different details or all the details of one floor in one sheet. It purely depends on the Architect’s perspective. The more the sheets, easier it is for the onsite labor force to understand the drawings.
These are some of the many drawings that comprise of an Architectural working drawing set. The same drawings are also a part of the planning drawings, however the Construction Drawings are drafted and detailed with much precision. Apart from just the Architectural Drawings, CD sets also consist of the structural and MEP drawings with major details. These drawings are bifurcated in the following ways
General Arrangement Drawings: These drawings include floor plans, sections and elevations. General arrangement drawings generally are used for identifying the location of different components and elements. Location drawings (general arrangement drawings) include floor plans, elevations, and sections; and show where the construction elements are situated.
Assembly drawings: These drawings show the combination of different parts together forming an assembly. The layers with different components, structural components, MEP parts, panel details etc. also are covered in the assembly drawings. The assembly drawings are used for installation purposes. MEP and structural drawings essentially are covered under Assembly drawings. The assembly drawings include larger components like trusses, cladding, panels, components like cupboards, etc. these can be directly installed after fabrication.
Detailed drawings: Detailed drawings are very important in Architectural Construction Drawing set. These drawings consist of the small and large details placed in drawings. These include window details, door details, kitchen furniture and fixture details, bathroom details, ceiling fixtures etc. The detail drawings consists of dimensions, exploded views etc. to enable the onsite construction labor force to order components accordingly.
Architectural Construction Drawings or working drawings would be a complete set with all of the above mentioned drawings and many other drawings. These drawings are prepared with an intention to facilitate onsite construction accurately. Usually these drawings are printed in A3 formats in 2D sheet form. They are created in Auto CAD. However, with the advent of BIM technology working Drawings or Architectural CD sets are also built using BIM software like Revit.
When develop CD set using the principles of BIM, the output is extremely accurate and cost effective. Creating and placing the details becomes much better. Since we will be first modeling the design in 3D and then developing 2D drawings, we can use the 3D model for presentation, retain it and continue to make changes when required. Best part of the working with BIM changes that we make in 3D model or plan view is automatically reflected in the elevations and sections.
Conclusion: Accuracy of Architectural Construction Drawings ultimately determine how the quality of onsite construction. It is mandatory for the Architectural firm to be highly proficient in working with diverse building types or structures applying different standards and codes.
