Exploring Construction Documents for Residential Project with 189 Houses

Let's begin looking at our second set of drawings. This is for another residential project. In this project, there were a total of 189 houses that were built.

There were nine different housing designs. What we're going to be going through are the construction documents for one of those residences. And just to let you know, this is one of the projects that we cover in our AutoCAD 301 and 302 course construction documents.

You can see that we have two houses that are shown on the cover sheet. There's one here and one here. Just to let you know, this is a duplex where we have a house there and we have another house there.

They share a common wall right in the middle between the two. But this is the house that we're going to be looking at. I'd like to zoom in for a few minutes on the cover sheet.

If I zoom into here, what you can start to see is the sheet index. You will notice over here on the left-hand side, there is the sheet number. The first character deals with the professional discipline.

So AS deals with Architectural Site. You can see, of course, at the very top is the Title Sheet and Sheet Index. So the Title Sheet, Architectural Site drawings.

Then we have the Civil drawings. And again, this is the order in which the documents were assembled in the overall construction document. I have my site electrical information.

Again, we were working on an entire neighborhood and so we had to do site electrical. You can see that we begin the page with our symbols and abbreviations and then we have single-line diagrams followed by the site plan drawings. You can also see that these drawings are broken into different areas.

We had an overall large neighborhood that we broke into specific areas and we've labeled them area A and area B. We have our Site Landscape drawings and then we also have our Building Landscape plans. Now, we're going to start tearing into the Architectural. So what you can see is that I have my architectural drawings for plan one.

So there are four drawings that are related to floor plan number one and that's what we're going to be studying. So you can see that I have the A1.0 drawing, which is the floor plan. The next page is the building sections and the roof plan.

Then I have Exterior Elevations and Interior Elevations and Interior Schedules. Then we go through the very same order for the additional plans that were designed. We also have down here sheet A9.0. We used the same construction methods when we were building all of the houses.

So there was a lot of standardization in what we did and so we have one sheet that relates to the Wall Sections that are relevant to all of the different plans that were drawn. Same thing happens with the Architectural Details. Again, the houses might have different brick veneers, different brick patterns, but generally the Architectural Details are the same.

So again, I'm in the architectural drawing. I'm looking at A1.0 through 1.3 for plan number one and then you can see the other plans that are in their order. Then I'm going to have a Wall Section drawing that is relative to all of the plans, Architectural Details that are relevant to all of the plans, and then we also have the hardscape plans.

The hardscape plans are where you are communicating information like walkways and driveways that go into an individual unit. So you can see that I'm showing plans one and two on sheet A10. And again, it's the hardscape plan.

We're going to be covering these architectural drawings for one plan and then we have the Structural drawings. And you can see what the Structural Engineer has done is they have organized their information slightly differently. Sheets S1 and S2 are their General Notes.

Then they have their Typical Details and we'll be reviewing a lot of those. So again, these are Typical Details that will relate to all of the houses that are being built. We then have on sheet S2 the Foundation Plan for Plan One.

We have a Roof Framing Plan which is sheet S3.1. So that's the Roof Framing Plan for Plan One. And then we have more details that are going on over here in the S4,5, 5.2,5.3 drawings. So that's Structural.

So again, we're going to look at their General Notes, their Typical Details, Foundation, Roof Framing Plans for plan number one, and then Architectural Details that relate to all of the houses. The next set of drawings we'll be looking at will be the Mechanical drawings. And once again, you can see you have the Mechanical heading right here.

The M1 sheet has the legends, the schedules, and the details. And then I have the HVAC which stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. I have the HVAC plans for each of the different units, plan one through eight.

We will be studying again plan one. So that's Mechanical. The next one I have is Plumbing.

So in the Plumbing, again, similar to Mechanical, I begin with my plumbing legend notes and schedules. And then I have two kinds of drawings that will be relative to each plan. I have my Domestic Water and Gas Plan and an Isometric, and I'll be getting into that, those isometrics are a lot of fun.

And then we also have our Waste and Ventilation Plans. So again, Mechanical and Plumbing and also Electrical are very similar in that they begin with their legends, schedules, and details, notes, abbreviations, and so on. And then they replicate the appropriate information for each of the different units.

Now over here on the bottom right-hand corner of the drawing is the Title Block. So whereas frequently you'll find people having Title Block information running vertically on the right-hand side of the drawings, sometimes what's happening is you use a Title Block in the bottom right corner of the drawing. So you can see that this is Sheet Number T1.0. It is the Title Sheet.

Now you will see above it where it says 100% final. What goes on is that on some projects, you have set Deliverable Schedules. And by that, what I mean is contractually, people are required to submit their drawings at set stages.

So you'll be awarded a contract, the contract delineates or details what is due when, and so the Client will frequently say, I want a deliverable at 30% completion, 60% completion, 90% completion, and 100% completion. So 30,60,90, and 100% completion. But you can see that this says 100% final.

So what would happen is that we would submit our drawings at 30,60,90, and 100. The Client would review the 100% submittal drawings. When they would review them, they would come back to us with a checklist and say, we agree with this, just update these final things.

And so we would then update the 100% to then call them 100% final drawings. Another set of drawings which is frequently developed are the As-Built drawings. So what happens is, you're in the design phase, you will begin the project, you will submit at 30,60,90,100,100% final.

Then you do your construction. And after construction is completed, you will create your As-Built drawings. The As-Built drawings represent what has been built.

Because frequently, when you are designing and building the building, minor changes will happen. They may end up moving where a light is. They may end up moving a wall.

They may end up moving where an air duct is. And so the As-Built drawings would reflect those modifications. So again, we're looking at the 100% final submission.

Now this chart up here is a Unit Tabulation. And for the Client's interest, I've had to erase some information. But what's going on is, this is simply where we are giving the count of each of the different unit types, what their finish schedules are.

So you can see that some, like here, are saying standard. Others are upgraded to certain conditions. These site locations would be area A and B that I discussed with you earlier.

So I'm just going to zoom back. And again, you can see the Title Sheet. We have our Sheet Index.

Again, on the left-hand side are the sheet numbers. The sheet numbers that are listed here will be shown on each sheet. Down here in the bottom right, we have the sheet name.

So this is the Drawing Index. This is the Tabulation. So you can see that we're going to have our Title Sheet.

We will then have our Floor Plan. We'll go into the Building Sections with the Roof Plan. We have our Exterior Elevations, Interior Elevations, and Door and Window Schedules.

We have Wall Sections, Architectural Details, and the hardscape. So this is what we're going to be covering in the first part of the class. So enjoy, and let's get ready to begin.