topic Re: new drafting standard. in Documentation

new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 13:35:49 GMT

I kind of like to question conventions. Disclaimer. my office has 5 partners with 5 different philosophies on drafting standards so i am jaded.

I am curious if there is anyone out there that prints to color for their final documents. For example you could use color to distinguish demolition, existing and new.

I'm trying to think of disadvantages. But the biggest one is printing to color. And some people are colorblind. maybe because some people don't have the $$ or printers to produce that i floor plan sheet.
n house. But the advantages drawings with huge amounts of information would be increased legibility and the ability to portray more information in one

what do you think? would the more options color provides help or do we have enough with lineweights and fills?

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:09:04 GMT

I am not sure about the US and other countries but in Australia we have standard colours for different materials. We do coloured elevations, plans, etc to show the actual colours. For details we are now trying a different approach.

For details we use the finest lines possible and use colours to differentiate materials. This does a number of things including making the drawings look presentable with fine lines and also being able to enlarge the detail to whatever size the Contractor requires on their computers. I attach an example. This saves on redoing details at smaller and larger scales.

Interesting topic.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:06:48 GMT

Wow... yeah. Divorcing one's self from the concept of 'line weights' is really a big leap. Graeme... you're old enough to remember hours of practicing line weights and lettering in Arch school, right?

Still - the arguments, particularly in today's digital world, are compelling. That said, in the USA, at least in residential work, contractors are working from printed documents so resizing is not up to them. Also, color printing is a little more expensive. Seems silly, but hey... on a high-end job, I might have 20 or 30 large sheets in the set, and printing bills can reach astronomical amounts. Finally, it's popular over here to print different phases of work on different colored PAPERS, which would naturally wreak havoc with color output.

The thing I've found myself questioning most is drawing SCALE. Sometimes, on buildings with complex layered wall assemblies, I wish the floor plan was 1:24 instead of the standard 1:48. The only problem is that you end up with having the floor plans occupying two or three sheets each, along with a smaller scale 'overall plan'. I feel like our drawings are getting unmanageably dense as it is.

Hmmm.. gotta'' think about that.

What I'd really like to see is the contractor having a digital model on the job site, which may be a reality in some locales, but sadly not here. It would need to incorporate specifications, too. Maybe just give him / her a PLA file and show 'em how it navigates, etc.

Either way, the best way to be sure our buildings come out correctly is proper on-site supervision which is sorely lacking in the American residential scene.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:14:36 GMT

Hi Dave, Yes I learnt all about line weights at uni and it was hard to let them go. They look good on a printed drawing.

However with computer models and drawings it is possible to zoom in and see all the detail and what we as architects are doing is communicating our design requirements to the Owners and Contractors. Fine lines and colours do that better than a mix of ever increasing line weights that just look a blur when viewed at close quarters in my opinion.

Drawings make up part of the Contract between the Owner and Contractor and if the drawings are detailed there is less misunderstanding and it is easier for all concerned to see if the building is being built correctly on the building site.

Handing over the building model to the Contractor I am frightened to do. I am fussy at drawing and modelling but the level of accuracy with models as part of the Contract will be complex and so time consuming the Owner won't be able to afford the cost in my opinion! Hopefully it will get easier to model so the model can become part of the deal.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:53:46 GMT

Handing over the building model to the Contractor I am frightened to do. I am fussy at drawing and modelling but the level of accuracy with models as part of the Contract will be complex and so time consuming the Owner won't be able to afford the cost in my opinion! Hopefully it will get easier to model so the model can become part of the deal.

and with that you completely sink one of the big reasons for BIM....an issue industry needs to address at a very high level so practitioners have some certainty with regard to liability.

When seen in the light of compatibility - which typically requires the use of translators, there is even more exposure to liability. e.g. I export my file as an IFC - and lose some data, or something does not export quite correctly.... And then the receiver who gets it relies on a translator to pull the data into their software...who certifies that? Scary stuff but very real.

Software manufacturers typically guarantee very little - and so it is this issue that really creates a conundrum for an industry basing itself on ever increasingly complex models. When it all gets "too hard" you can see why some regulators are starting to insist on one software.........

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:21:12 GMT

Wow. thanks Graeme! It's nice to see someone who is actually doing it. I'm guessing this method is easier than managing lineweights and more legible. which begs the question to me, why aren't more people doing it.

Dave - Yeah, printing costs are significant and we are moving towards digital models on the site. I can just picture a contractor with a 11x17 tablet that navigates the entire project model in 3d as well as all of the flattened 2d documents! not too far away. I intend to start doing that now with my ipad2! Now if GS will just make a plugin for ipad.

rwallis - interesting problem. liability. meh. i'm not afraid, i must be ignorant

Re: new drafting standard.

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:42:46 GMT

In Hungary you have to print the documentation in many copies, many times in 10-12 copies so the Client get 2-3 copies, each authority involved get their copy, the Architect keeps a copy.
We always printed one copy and got it copied with the cheapest possible method.

But in my country fees are very low and competition is high. So the project would have to pay very well in order to afford colored documents.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:48:34 GMT

For those Aussies interested in the colours of the sections these are nominated in Australian Standard AS1100.301-2008. Some of the common colours are red for brick, deep hooker's green for concrete, olive green for concrete blocks, sepia for earth, cobalt blue for glass, etc.

We find more and more that we give contractors PDF prints rather than paper prints. They then print the drawings as they require and it is then no direct cost to us or our clients. We are foregoing our copyright but figure we would rather have someone else spending their time printing drawings other than us. After all is said and done all we get out of printing financially is a little above cost of printing.

We provide printed copies for authorities applications, for clients, and contract sets but the rest we send as PDF's.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:04:39 GMT

oh. Graeme I like that even more. Let other people bear the time and expense of printing. Nice

laszlonagy, yes I see the implications for costs being simply not worthwhile in such projects. We have some of those projects as well, usually it is with government related work where we need so many copies. it would be impractical to print those in color, this is true here in AK as well.

this is my face when we print out drawings & specifications for a school project or the like. reams and reams of paper.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:17:10 GMT

Personally I like to work on the assumption that, even if there is colour on the plotted drawing, it has to be able to be read in monochrome. Particularly since, if the drawings are issued as PDFs, we have no control over how they look once printed - and since colour prints are substantially more expensive here than b&w (x10!), it's more than likely that the drawings will be distributed on site without the benefit of colour.

Re: new drafting standard.

Steve Jepson — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:19:02 GMT

I have been using color prints for many years. But for just two sets/project. One set for me and one for the client. I print these origials here in my office on my HP Designjet 800 in color and on realy good quality paper. The other 8 sets are cheap gray scale copies I have made for 1.50/sheet. (24X36)

Re: new drafting standard.

KeesW — Mon, 02 May 2011 12:47:51 GMT

Colour printing is very topical for us at the moment. I recommend against it for contractual reasons. Once drawings leave our office, especially those used for tendering, we don't know how they will be conveyed to sub-contractors. A beautiful coloured set might be quite illegible when copied in black and white or grey scale. And if these are used for quoting, what mistakes might arise?

Colour is great for presentation, and for contactual drawings only if you can control how printed copies are distributed. We cannot be sure that builders have colour copiers or printers, especially for larger than A3 sized drawings.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 01:35:40 GMT

While it may be more difficult for contractors to print coloured drawings, what is in the contract set, including colours, is the contractor's responsibility. Many choose to only look at them on computers but if they print the drawings they should be giving coloured drawings to subcontractors and others responsible for construction.

Prior to about 1978 in Australia all drawings had to be coloured (usually watercolour on ammonia prints) to comply with Council regulations so materials could be easily distinguished. Prior to ammonia prints copies were made by draughting "tracers" and then individually coloured!

In a way colouring drawings for Contract and construction sets is simply a revision of past good practise and makes the drawings more clear for less mistakes and less misinterpretation.

Re: new drafting standard.

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:35:25 GMT

Releasing digital models to the Contractor and even the Owner is usually on a "User assumes all liability for use and holds the Architect harmless" type of language.

The level of detail is not the major issue. The conventions and shortcuts of Architectural representation are the issue. For example, "our" concrete columns are one story tall, but a contractor does not pour one story tall, his pour stops at the bottom of the beams. So it gets really hairy depending on the user and what they see as either buildable or just a visual "pretty".

Color: I love color prints, they are so legible, but until they are bullet proof - black is beautiful. Yellow?, In our Southern Sun a yellow line has a half life of about two weeks, then its' sayonara baby.

Snap