Going "Paperless"

[Anonymous]

OK. So, what's the news on Electronic Plan Submittal, EPS?

Is it time to design an EPS package, or system of preparation of building "plans" in a format that Building Officials can read on their own monitors in their own work stations, thus eliminating paper, and the delivery of paper plans?

It occurs to me that many aspects of building plan review do not need to be displayed at a large scale, thus a normal computer monitor could function well for plan review. For example the path of travel for building egress could easily be shown diagrammatically.

Links to structural connections, and to special room dimensions could be shown on a "key plan" format for display which would fill the monitor screen, but needn't be a conventional plan with notes and dimensions. Notes would be hyper-linked to other screen views.

Building Departments could have plans printed "on demand" by outside vendors, as needed, rather than submitting multi-page sets of plans in multiple sets, as we do now, saving multiple trips to multiple Departments, ...and time.

A cursory search shows nothing on this important topic. I sense I've missed earlier posts on this topic, but if not, ...what cities and companies are leading the charge to the inevitable Electronic review and approval of building "plans" and who is doing the work? And what have we missed so far?

Is this a thread in ArchiCAD-Talk that I've missed?

[Rod Jurich]

Dwight wrote:

Else?

Standing, clapping.

I feel you might have the last word, Dwight.

Thanks for some old fashioned, feet on the ground, pragmatic common sense.

[TomWaltz]

Dwight wrote:
Well, what if?

And, from time-to-time software companies cease to be so "Warranty? What warranty?
So, not only does Digital equal a potential fake, but a temporary one at that.

In the next fifteen years:

1: reliable storage media
2: Universal non-obsolete filing/recording system.

Else?

Else, a paperless office would not be acceptable.

[Aussie John]

Matthew wrote:
Well "wielding a nail-gun" is more likely nowadays. I have worked with plenty of tradesmen who look at drawings and even carry them around when necessary (as well as having been one myself). Do you think a Sony eBook is going to be easier than stuffing a copy of a fax into the tool belt?

Of course not but sometimes I wonder if builders ever look at drawings:)

[Dwight]

Else? = Other things to enable a paperless office.

[Djordje]

Aussie wrote:
Of course not but sometimes I wonder if builders ever look at drawings:)

They don't.

[Dwight]

And they are such a bunch of dunderheads, not reading our drawings (minds), aren't they? It wouldn't be as if the drawings were next to useless, would it? And that after years of seeing ten thousand stair details done wrong (requiring nails pounded upwards in an 8" deep space, say. You need a flummery agitator for that - no easy thing to rent.)
that they would lose patience. I imagine the pressure of standing in a half-finished space with a crew of eager lads and finding a tiny discrepancy in a drawing can lead to rash decision-making and a long-bomb treatment of a drawing set.

As if Archicad could actually put architectural information in a project for us.

Sit down sometime with somebody else's drawings and assess the quality of information. Starting from a position of no knowledge and having a drawing set as the only guide is daunting. In many cases, it isn't that we need to read a drawing, but we need to "Read into" the drawing the information necessary to actually build the project. Bad drawings get made because of over-familiarity and/or under-experience. The project is in our head and we think it should be easy to reveal in a simple set of drawings, but that is not the case. We either know too much and fail to express it, or, using a time honored work concept "people don't know what they don't know," aren't aware of what the builder needs to know.

These problems arise from a lack of mentorship and supervision. Of course, if your boss waves his arms like I do in my avatar, he is probably one of those "conceptual" types who is better at schmoinging-up to rich people than understanding building details or plans, for that matter. That is why he is wearing the suit. Suit=idiot). He'll be useless.

I wouldn't say any of this except that in September I found myself on a job site half a continent away from home with a sculpture packed in a bunch of crates. And some drawings. My own drawings. There was still a lot to figure out. The idiot who drew the drawing forgot that the ceiling beams were not exactly perpendicular to the tunnel (etc). So, from the getgo I was making things up. Careless, I admit, but it points out how thoroughly a designer must understand the construction process to make error-free documents.

For instance: I've been having this trouble with my best joke. There's a structural flaw in it and I was too close to it to see. I figure it needs two set-ups and I only put in one. There's nothing worse than no laughs at your best joke, except a contractor doing a long-bomb with your drawings into a mud filled excavation.

[Anonymous]

"Paperless" is a good title for "digital," but absolute paperless-ness, ...not yet, ...and not meant.

I'm thinking of expediting the permit process and the construction process. One might ask why multiple sets of drawings need to go to mulitple offices, or why one drawing set needs to visit a linear line of offices at the Building Department and be approved in sequence, and why plan-check corrections/clarifications can't be online.

Most plan review is of a specific and focused issue, zoning setbacks, parking requirements, land use, long range planning, traffic impact, shadow impacts, energy use, environmental impact, ...on and on. But the drawing package to suit a structural plan check needn't be the same package for the tax assessor.

The steel fabricator doesn't need casework details.

What if our cities were more specific in their requests for information? What if our digital packages were designed to fit the exact needs of each department and could be delivered online, ...for review and "tentative" approvals, ...to be followed up with parchment for those cities with enormous storage budgets, or with pdf's for more modern minds?

I disagree that architects can't drive the argument. Why don't WE suggest the format for our submittals? Good ideas tend to drive themselves and architects have lots of good ideas.

"If not us, who? If not now, when?"

Legal documents are held by "both parties," whether digital or parchment. That digital can be altered suggests a 3rd party involvement, like a bank deposit for CDs, or an escrow office. Or a new business/profession entirely, legal digital storage, ...delivered with a click.

Job notes, site visits, telephone logs, can all be kept digitally already, and include videos/snapshots/audio. A "paper trail" could simply become an online trail too, using a third party, or simple email corroboration amongst the parties invloved. Delivered with a click.

Naturally, dishonest people "happen" from time to time. But thorough documentation works against them, ...even new-age documentation.

In making the case for streamlining the design, bid, build, maintain, and subsequent storage of info, ...isn't the paper trail argument irrelevant?

[Aussie John]

Wouldnt it be good if the builder had access to the model and could show the ones who can read drawings what it is supposed to look like.