Last time building owners took an interest in who called the shots was when ‘project managers’ got established in a central role, independent from design consultants. I have a lot of respect for PMs in construction. It takes a great amount of skills to do what they do. Their highest achievement: making themselves absolutely essential on all building projects from reroofing granny’s garage to building entire new cities.
I wish they did tackle the Flatcad syndrome now.
Flatcad? Definition: Computer aided drafting that uses purely orthogonal projections and ignores most of the rules and principles of ‘traditional’ documenting. When you produce a technical drawing by hand you do: 1/ work on various projections simultaneously; 2/ set these views out in a logical order; 3/ (most importantly) you think what you draw and where and how much of it; Flatcad has ‘copy and paste’, within very short timeframes almost anyone can produce huge amounts of ‘drawings’. You’ll find small buildings documented using hundreds and hundreds of sheets. Larger developments will go into thousands; What is behind this phenomenon? 1/ lack of technical skills in ‘grassroots’ levels of documenting 2/lack of understanding by management (consultancy, project, company etc) on what is going on at ‘grassroots’ levels 3/ the control CAD managers have, often puppeteered by software vendors;
Unconvinced? Tomorrow, I’ll post an example how I wrestle flatcad.
One source that is not listed - Level of skill in the craftsmen using the end product. I have received an increased number of "more detail" demands above and beyond what was required 10 years ago.
ReplyDelete