As-built drawings for architects

The measured base set problem

Every renovation, adaptive reuse and tenant improvement project starts the same way: somebody has to establish what is actually there. Traditionally that is a junior architect with a laser distance meter, a clipboard and two days, followed by a week of drafting a base set that the whole project will then be designed against.

It is the least leveraged work in the office. It is billed at architectural rates or absorbed into fee, it produces no design value, and the accuracy it achieves is bounded by how carefully someone held a tape at four in the afternoon on the second day.

It is also where a specific and expensive class of error is introduced. Hand measurement accumulates: each dimension is taken from the last, so small errors compound across a floor plate. The result closes on paper because someone made it close. The building does not care.

What changes when the base set is measured

• Design time goes to design

  The two-to-three days of site measurement and the drafting week after it come off the project entirely. Your team opens a file that is already correct.

• Assumptions stop propagating

  An error in the base set is not contained. It travels into the design, the consultant coordination, the permit set and eventually the field. Fixing it at the source is the cheapest fix available.

• Existing structure is where it says it is

  Columns, slab edges and shafts in older buildings are routinely off from the original drawings. Capture puts them where they are, before a design is committed around where they were supposed to be.

• Site revisits become optional

  The iGUIDE 3D tour is a navigable record of the space. Most of the questions that would otherwise mean a return trip get answered from a desk.

• One dataset, no drift

  Plans, RCPs, elevations and sections all come out of the same scan, so they agree with each other by construction rather than by someone checking.

• Fee stays where it belongs

  Existing-conditions capture is a line item with a number attached before it starts, instead of an open-ended internal cost absorbed into design phase.

How this fits a project

Typically engaged at the very front of schematic design, before the first base file exists.

1. You tell us the deliverable, not the method

   Which sheets, whether the output is layered DWG or a Revit model, what level of detail, and which CAD standard your office works to. We scope from that.

2. We capture the building

   LiDAR at ±10mm. Occupied and tenanted space is worked around; the building does not need to be emptied and the tenant does not need to be displaced.

3. Floor plans come back first

   Dimensioned plans and the 3D tour typically land in one to two business days, so early massing and test-fit work can start before the full set exists.

4. The full set follows

   Layered CAD or the Revit model, in your standard, in about a week for a typical commercial scope.

Heritage, adaptive reuse and buildings that have moved

The older the building, the wider the gap between the drawings and the reality, and the more valuable a measurement becomes. Vancouver has a lot of commercial stock that has been through several fit-outs, at least one structural intervention, and a change of use, with the drawing set updated for approximately none of it.

Scanning handles irregular geometry well precisely because it does not need the building to be orthogonal to record it. Out-of-plumb walls, non-parallel demising lines, floors that step, and rooms that are not rectangles all come back as what they are rather than as the tidy version a hand measurement tends to produce.

See what the deliverable looks like

Rather than describe it, here is a real set: floor plans, the 3D tour and the measured areas from a delivered project.

View sample deliverables

Opens the sample page — floor plans, an iGUIDE tour and the measured output from real work.

Common questions

Can you deliver a Revit model instead of CAD?

Yes. Tell us the Revit version your office works in and the level of detail the project needs, and the existing conditions arrive as a modelled .rvt rather than a drawing set. The scan-to-Revit page covers what is and is not modelled.

Will the file work with our office CAD standard?

Send your layer standard, template or a sample drawing when you book and the deliverable comes back in it. If your office does not have a documented standard, we deliver in a clean conventional layer structure.

How much of the building do you need access to?

Only what is in scope. Scanning a single suite or floor without touching the rest of the building is routine, particularly on tenant improvement work.

Can you scan while the space is occupied?

Yes, and most of our commercial work is occupied. The equipment is set up and moved through the space without clearing furniture or shutting the tenant down.

Do you provide the point cloud?

The deliverable is the drawings or model rather than the raw data by default. If your team wants the registered scan data to reference in their own environment, raise it when you book and it gets scoped in.

Do you work outside Vancouver?

Across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley — Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Delta, Langley, Coquitlam, New Westminster, the North Shore and out to Abbotsford and Chilliwack.

Keep reading

• Scan to Revit — Existing conditions delivered as a model for teams designing in BIM.
• Tenant improvement as-builts — The most common project type this base set gets used on.
• CAD drafting — The drawing side: sheet types, layers and file formats.
• As-built drawings — The service in full, including accuracy and turnaround.

Start the project with the building already measured

Book online with an instant estimate. Tell us the format and standard your office works in.