I recently had an opportunity to sit cheek by jowl with an architect for
several weeks while he designed an entire university campus for 1,200
students, with nothing but an empty plot of ground as his starting
point. As part of that process, he had to figure room sizes
(obviously), but as part of that, he had to calculate standard sizes for
furniture, equipment and appurtenances, in order to use the spaces
efficiently, sure everything fit, that electric plugs, light fixtures
and windows were positioned correctly, make sure that the rooms would
end up with the correct capacity, etc., etc. At the end, he had built
out a complete equipment list for the entire campus, confident that
everything would fit, that aisles, walkways and other open spaces would
be correct, and that everything else would fit and work.
Based upon my observations and discussions with him, it would certainly
appear that architects have standard metrics, not only for the equipment
(he did not need to spend a lot of time puzzling over what footprint a
desk or table or file cabinet requires), but also for clearances between
items, walkway dimensions and everything else you'd need to properly
design and outfit a room, a building full of rooms and a campus full of
buildings. I asked him if this all this was something you learned in
architecture school, and he said no, it's something you hopefully are
taught by your first employer in your post-graduation period of
indentured servitude as an apprentice to an experienced architect. He
opined that he was lucky in this regard to draw a hard taskmaster who
taught him these things.
So, if the architect is experienced in designing this sort of building,
the firm will surely have, not only access to standards and rubrics, but
also familiarity with them and with the intricacies of applying them to
actual room and building design. If they don't, and they have to puzzle
them out from scratch for the first time for your project, I can see
where there might be issues down the road.
Just by way of noting something truly amazing, by the end (about three
weeks), in addition to the equipment list,this gentleman had drafted out
the entire campus on graph paper, by hand, with a pencil and ruler --
room by room, building by building, ready to send to the engineers and
autocad guys. To boot, this tireless fount of knowledge and work output
is 78 years old.
Gary Link wrote:
> <
> The first thing is to fire your architect. If he is in the business and
> doesn't have those standards either in his head or in his office you are
> in trouble.
>
> Having worked previously at an A/E firm for over 14 years, I would say
> that a lot of architects would be fired, then, and needlessly so. In their
> office, maybe. But in their head, never unless there is one person in the
> shop that specializes.
>
> Gary Link
> Pittsburgh, PA
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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Best regards,
John
John Montaņa
Montaņa & Associates
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Landenberg Pennsylvania 19350
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