The Plan For Publishing Architectural Project Drawings

Plan For Publishing Project Drawings

As I have searched our project archives for details to share, it has dawned on me that sharing the entire set of architectural project drawings may be just as useful to you, Dear Reader. In fact, I am thinking that I will publish all the project drawings that we have digital files for. Perhaps we will look into scanning the older project drawings that only exist on paper, too. 


To my knowledge no one has ever done this before - publish a firm’s entire archive of project drawings. Maybe this will be a ’thing’. But if Architekwiki is a Resource and a Reference for architects, this seems like a good way of pursuing that mission.

There is a fair amount of work involved to do this. I may have to charge a modest price for future sets of project drawings, but for now, as I experiment and try to gauge the level of enthusiasm for this concept, the PDFs of the project drawings will be free in exchange for your email address.

In order to set expectations, I need to mention a couple of things. First these drawings will be stripped of any indication of authorship, location, owner, project name or any uniquely recognizable feature. The owners of these projects would rightfully object to having their facility’s project drawings on display on the Internet. Second, I don't own the structural and mechanical/electrical drawings, so I can't include those. Third, these projects are not suitable for copying for several reasons: 1) you would have to be an idiot and a charlatan to copy someone else’s work and represent it as your own, 2) all of these projects were designed for unique needs and contexts and won't be suitable for other needs and contexts, 3) codes are different now and different where you are, and 4) see reason #1. 

Having said why you shouldn’t copy these project drawings, there is nevertheless something to be learned from seeing how someone else solved a design problem, a construction detail, or how a complete set of architectural project drawings is put together, what it includes, and what it looks like. So the point is to make examples available for you to learn from, not to do your work for you.

There are dozens of details and templates and examples on Architekwiki now. This might be a good time to assemble all of them in one place where they can be found and downloaded. Well, that should keep me busy until Thanksgiving. 

Look for the first project in the next couple of weeks.

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