5.28.18 – SSI – Shane Clary presents real-world examples of how pictures and site visits can fill in the details that floor plans may miss during systems design.
As part of my regular job, I look at a lot of building plans and visit building sites, both existing and under construction. Depending on the plans provided, the designer of a system may or may not be able to ascertain a correct picture of the ceiling or ceiling/roof assembly geometry.
Take the three photographs, shown below, from recent projects. All three locations are buildings under construction for tenant improvement. For all three, plans were available for review and use for the development of the shop drawings.
If the designer of these three systems only looked at the basic floor plans, they could have determined that all locations had smooth, flat ceilings that were less than 10 feet high. As you can see, this was far from the reality.
Details from ceiling plans, structural plans and elevations were all required to produce the true picture of how the room spaces would be at completion.