Quick Recap + Construction Documents
Sometimes, covering all the moving parts involved in Design Development is like riding the subway while simultaneously trying to count subway tiles.
There’s so much!
And we’re moving so fast!
Thankfully, we create construction documents that capture all of your hard and thoughtful decisions.
But before we move on, what do you know?
What have we covered in the last four weeks?
Well, a lot.
In terms of DD, you know that your job as a developer is to dive into your architect’s plans and to work collaboratively with them to take them from good to great, paying specific attention to making a unit as functional as possible while remaining extremely attractive to a potential tenant.
You’ll scrutinize the unit layout, the lighting, the appliances, the cabinets, and the path the eye travels as prospective tenants move through the space. If anything, we’ve emphasized that the interior design of your units is where you can most easily develop expertise. This expertise can extend to your selection of exterior materials as well. Do you need to be an engineer to select a cost-effective and aesthetically pleasing mixture of Nichiha, Hardi Board, and metal panels?
Nope.
Your architect will guide you, but this is where your vision is equally important.
In contrast, the MEPs part of your build is where all your due diligence in hiring a solid team pays off. While I have opinions about whether folks should use PTACs in design-forward builds, I also know that I have to trust my engineers when designing safe and energy-efficient systems.
The construction document phase comes after you’ve completed design development, where your architect/design team prepares a set of plans and project specifications that describe the details of the entire project. These are what you'll use to submit for your building permits.
This step represents a large portion of the architect's fees, often resulting in a 100-150 page document. You should be able to take this 100-page set of plans and hand it to a construction team, and they should be able to build your building based on those plans.
Of course, in the real world, there is back and forth during the construction process. There are questions, clarifications, et cetera, but these plans are comprehensive and will serve as THE documents you'll use to bid out the deal to a contractor.
These plans contain everything we have previously discussed: interior design, structural, electrical, and mechanical.
In addition to these plans, you should request that your architect provide a specifications book, aka a “spec book.” This book goes out to the contractor and specifies everything from types of appliances to windows to cabinetry. This Spec Book creates clear expectations about the types of finishes you need so that contractors don’t budget for builder-grade materials, submit what looks like a competitive bid, and then leave you with a ginormous hole in your budget.
Your construction documents and spec book will typically take 60-90 days to complete (count on 90!)
Alright, so next week we’ll get our hands dirty with choosing a contractor. Buckle up!
PS
I will give a shout-out in the next newsletter to the first five people who can tell me what’s important in the drawing below. You better know ;-)
Ceiling heights are key, but also location of all ceiling fixtures. They appear to be missing.
Great post. In your market would you consider appointing a Contractor in a Pre-construction Agreement in order to ensure the CD is bullet proof?
The plans don't detail a door to the bathroom off of the bedroom. As someone in the HVAC design business, I would love to hear some elaboration on your PTAC statement.