Discover the systematic organization of construction documents in adherence to the National CAD Standards. This article explores the logical grouping and numbering of these documents, detailing their arrangement from general to specific, and illustrating the significance and function of each section.
Key Insights
- The sheet index page of construction documents displays a systematic arrangement of information from general to specific, following a logical workflow from the top right downwards, then leftwards.
- Construction documents conform to the National CAD Standards, which stipulate a specific ordering and naming system for pages. This includes designators for the professional discipline, a sheet type designator, and a numerical sequence.
- The disciplines are grouped alphabetically and followed by divisions such as general documents, plans, elevations, and sections. Supplemental drawings and additional details, including architectural symbols and abbreviations, are also included in the organization.
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This is the sheet index page. You can see the name of the document down here, and here is the sheet page's number. In sheet indices, the information is conveyed from the top right down, and then we read to the left.
You can see that information is grouped in different sections. There's a section for general information, the architectural information, architectural continued, continued, interior design, structural engineering, continuation of the structural, plumbing, mechanical, and electrical and the technology drawings are on the next page, which we will be reviewing in our next video. There is a logic in the numbering of the sheet pages.
In your handouts, we've included a PDF of this document, which is from the National CAD Standards. The National CAD Standards, one of the things it includes is a logical workflow for ordering the documents within a set of construction documents. There are designators for the professional discipline, a sheet type designator, and then a numerical sequence.
The disciplines are grouped alphabetically, general, hazardous, survey mapping, architectural, structural, plumbing, electrical. So, these characters would be the first character listed in the name of the page. Then we have divisions.
So, there's an area for general documents, for plans, elevations, sections. So, again, these are the numbers that reflect these designators and the sheets are put together and organized in this fashion. And then we have the sequential numbering.
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So, you could see A for architectural, dash, sequence 102, and then these are supplemental drawings, in this case, revision one. When we return and look at our sheet index page, you'll notice that the architect and the engineers have all conformed naming their sheets in accordance with the National CAD Standards. So, we have A for architecture, dash, then we have the page number 101, and then A and a B. This building is very large.
All the information cannot be conveyed adequately at a readable scale factor on one page, and so there's a part A and a part B to the building. So, you can see the number sequencing is going up. So, again, lower level parking, the second level of parking, third level, and we keep going up the building.
The information is organized, again, as in the National CAD Standards. We begin with plans, then we go into elevations. There are some building axonometrics, which are presentations of the 3D model.
Then we go into building sections, wall sections, enlarged plans. So, most of this information down through here is enlarged plans. Then we have plan detail drawings, some guest room details, wall type rating assemblies, information on the windows, stairs, elevators, and the parking lot striping plan.
So, again, we're following the same order that's recommended in the National CAD Standards, and all of the remaining disciplines have done the same thing. Let's now begin learning about the architectural symbols and abbreviations.