Which types of structural framing systems and materials are most commonly used in the US for residences? For office buildings?
What factors determine why these are the most used materials?
Most US residences use light wood framing because it’s cheap, fast to install/build, and perfectly adequate for the relatively small spans and loads in houses. In contrast, office buildings typically rely on steel or reinforced concrete systems, since they need larger open floors, higher strength, higher fire resistance, more lateral stability, etc. Overall, the choice comes down to cost, code requirements, material availability, structural calculations, and the performance expectations of the building type. Wood construction for this assignment’s function would not have been a good option.
How do you think design coordination was done before we started using digital models?
What advantages does doing this coordination digitally have over previous methods?
Before digital models, design coordination was mostly done by hand: drawings, overlays, trace paper, redlines, and a lot of in-person meetings where teams compared plans inch by inch to catch conflicts. It worked (obviously because buildings existed in the past). But it wasn’t as time-efficient. However, I will argue that the practice of hand-drawing plans, sections, and elevations can reveal to an architect flaws that they wouldn’t notice in BIM (due to having to seriously pay attention to every little detail). Non-digital design is a lost art…
Doing coordination digitally is a huge upgrade for a rapidly growing and urbanizing world: models align automatically, clashes are caught almost instantly, updates propagate across views, and everyone works around the same file(s) (many times, remote from any location). BIM cuts errors, speeds up decisions, and makes it easier to collaborate throughout the design process.
At what point in the project development process should design coordination start?
Is it ever too early?
Design coordination should start asap, ideally in early schematic or conceptual design. It’s never too early- catching issues earlier rather than later saves time, money, and stress.