So that last post got me thinking - other than a few emergency situations (always as a result of other people's poor planning) after a certain point there was never any necessity for anyone to manually sign/seal drawings other than one hold out (New Jersey - if I recall correctly that still required a raised seal), andsome jurisdictions that required a wet stamp/signature (to make sure that the drawings had actually been in front of an Architect/Engineer at least once).
Florida was the other raised seal hold-out, but even they got a regular stamp seal a few years back. Since the Electrical Engineer I used to work for thought that iPads (which many of the Architects and other Engineers used to sign - and in some cases - review and markup their drawings) were fucking retarded, the process was to put the necessary stamp on a piece of paper, have him sign/date, scan it in and then slap it on the drawings (ACAD/Revit, or directly on the. pdf).
It was a little bit tedious, especially if people kept changing the date (typically due to Revit related delays, or pure incompetence), but it beat plotting out the drawings and stamping each one for him to sign. Regardless, the final result still usually ended up being a hardcopy submittal - and the main reason for this is that whoever was reviewing it didn't have to worry about having the correct software, file format, file size, etc. in order to view it.
The thing is, electronic files can be manipulated, older versions can accidentally end up getting used (or overwriting newer versions), and you can't always rely on someone to grab the correct ones from their e-mail, dropbox, website, server, etc. I've seen pdfs get submitted that were total shit - even if you opened and looked at them, you wouldn't notice missing information or other glaring mistakes - but holy shit when you print them out and look at them full-size (or even half-size).
Now I get it, the dream is to design, review, submit, receive approval, then fabricate/construct/install - all from an electronic file (a model specifically), but even aside from dragging the necessary people/jurisdictions/departments kicking and screaming into 'the future', that hardcopy represents something that no electronic file ever will.
In the last week I've submitted two separate projects - one that required an Engineer (from another company that we share a building with) to sign/seal, and one that did not. Both required hardcopies - the first had to be shipped to the State Board of Health, the second I hand delivered to the County Fire Marshall in the City/County building downtown.
Another project was completed and uploaded to the City for their review - but damned if their website wasn't fucked up and wouldn't allow me to create a folder to upload the files. When I called to ask if they were having a problem, they said they had received other submittals (meaning the problem was most likely on our end - possibly related to the website requiring an older version of IE for it to work properly).
My wife (a college English teacher) had run into the same problem with some State school websites that (like the City's website) appear to have been written by a five year old and are hopelessly tied to some functionality that has long been defunct and removed from newer browsers. Fortunately the guy who I was sending the files to was able to generate the necessary folder and I was able to upload the project (but, of course, this meant that two other projects has taken precedence).
The point is that a physical copy of a project is a snapshot in time - it requires that all dicking around cease in order to put together something that someone can hold in their hands. It can be unrolled, anywhere, without the need for software, any kind of electronic device (or even electricity). Once signed/sealed it becomes an official document.
In the future, it won't matter if the software to read the file exists (think government agencies that have to keep ancient systems limping along in order to continue to read files in hopelessly outdated formats), or the data gets corrupted (unbeknownst to most people - data degrades over time, regardless of how it is saved). Fuck, a Revit file could barely keep from getting corrupted several times while the project was being worked on.
Listening to Revitards opine that they can't just model something and hand it off (most likely incomplete, inaccurate, and nigh impossible to actually see anything) is hilarious. They seem to view the process of getting usable documentation out of their model as some kind of massive inconvenience ('Just look at the model!'). I'm sure they have beaten (or will beat) a few 'forward thinking' jurisdictions/AHJ's into starting to accept the model as part (if not the whole) submittal, but they are going to face massive push back by people that can very easily hold up construction.
It has less to do with forcing people to do things a new way, and more to do with the 'new way' being a fucking smokescreen - and people who haven't plugged themselves into the Revit hive-mind can see it plain as day. One thing that you see come up time and again (and that several commenters have mentioned) is the matter of who takes on liability when a project goes 'less than swimmingly'.
Just like having solid, well-written contracts prevents a firm from getting it in the nuts when things go FUBAR, a well-engineered (or architected) set of drawings that you can whip out and see directly in front of you can prevent you from having those nuts sliced directly off and stuffed in your mouth. This is also right about the same time most people go into panic mode, and it's really easy for someone to be tempted to tweak a digital file to try to cover their ass (seen it happen - more than once).
Obviously if the fuckup is right there in black-and-white, it can be just as damaging - but that's kind of the point. If nobody ever actually looked at the drawings, and just gave some .pdfs the same glassy-eyed stare that monitors/tablets/phones tend to invoke in people, then it's nobodies fault but their own.
Fuck 'em.
Sincesquarely,
S.F.
Next Time: What the Fuck Windows 10?
The point is that a physical copy of a project is a snapshot in time - it requires that all dicking around cease in order to put together something that someone can hold in their hands. It can be unrolled, anywhere, without the need for software, any kind of electronic device (or even electricity). Once signed/sealed it becomes an official document.
In the future, it won't matter if the software to read the file exists (think government agencies that have to keep ancient systems limping along in order to continue to read files in hopelessly outdated formats), or the data gets corrupted (unbeknownst to most people - data degrades over time, regardless of how it is saved). Fuck, a Revit file could barely keep from getting corrupted several times while the project was being worked on.
Listening to Revitards opine that they can't just model something and hand it off (most likely incomplete, inaccurate, and nigh impossible to actually see anything) is hilarious. They seem to view the process of getting usable documentation out of their model as some kind of massive inconvenience ('Just look at the model!'). I'm sure they have beaten (or will beat) a few 'forward thinking' jurisdictions/AHJ's into starting to accept the model as part (if not the whole) submittal, but they are going to face massive push back by people that can very easily hold up construction.
It has less to do with forcing people to do things a new way, and more to do with the 'new way' being a fucking smokescreen - and people who haven't plugged themselves into the Revit hive-mind can see it plain as day. One thing that you see come up time and again (and that several commenters have mentioned) is the matter of who takes on liability when a project goes 'less than swimmingly'.
Just like having solid, well-written contracts prevents a firm from getting it in the nuts when things go FUBAR, a well-engineered (or architected) set of drawings that you can whip out and see directly in front of you can prevent you from having those nuts sliced directly off and stuffed in your mouth. This is also right about the same time most people go into panic mode, and it's really easy for someone to be tempted to tweak a digital file to try to cover their ass (seen it happen - more than once).
Obviously if the fuckup is right there in black-and-white, it can be just as damaging - but that's kind of the point. If nobody ever actually looked at the drawings, and just gave some .pdfs the same glassy-eyed stare that monitors/tablets/phones tend to invoke in people, then it's nobodies fault but their own.
Fuck 'em.
Sincesquarely,
S.F.
Next Time: What the Fuck Windows 10?
