Phase one is also known as design development. It’s the part where we hammer out the basic floor plans and elevations of your project. Your job is to tell me all your desires and visions of you new home. These visions are made immensely more communicable by something like a sketch or magazine picture of what you want your home to look like. My job is to transform your thoughts to images. Properly scaled images which usually read 1/4″ = 1′. You will see perspectives, elevations and floor plans that you can study and debate and annotate to your hearts content. When you get your first preliminary drawing, I hope to hear what I heard from Steve W. who emailed back;
“Hi Rick! The plans you sent are just beautiful and truly remarkable and something we can definitely work with. You did a good job of “reading” into our wishes and us. Thank you for thoughtful insight. So what do we do now? The file transferred and printed out beautifully by the way. Looking forward to hearing from you.”
I don’t expect that I will get it all right the first time around. We may go two or three rounds before both of us are happy. Emailing updates and changes is a very expedient way to initialize the design process but your FedEx’ed hard copy on 24×36″ paper is needful, I believe, to get a feel for the size of rooms.
It is very important at the outset, to consider your project budget. When we get to where we have a basic foot print and roof lines, we have enough to check with builders for log package estimates and I will be able to estimate the rest of the shell. We can then size it down and cut here and there if need be.
Your site also needs to be considered during phase one. A topographical survey map is an invaluable tool for me if I can not visit the site. These are usually obtained from short-plat records and the like: after you mark out the view locations and access, I will be able to take care of the rest.
Phase two is also called the Construction Document stage. For me this is just about the halfway point in our contract. We have firmed up the design and now it needs to be put into builder language. I will then add to the preliminary plans:
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A great deal of effort goes into this phase to make it readable and consistent in it’s format. We want you to receive a few compliments by the building officials and planing department on such a thorough and professional plan. You generally need all the help you can get with the planing department bureaucrats.
Normally your plans will need to be stamped be a licensed structural engineer in your state, sometimes not. If this is required, I send a copy of the plans to the engineer, he reviews it, redlines it if necessary. Then I make the necessary changes and print two or three sets. They go back to the engineer for a “wet signature” and then they get sent to you. The engineer sometimes requires the third one for his records. You then can make as many copies as you like from the stamped copies. The “wet signature” copies will go the planing department.
If the plans’ examiner needs extra details or clarification, I will provide it as a part of my service.