Detailing for CDS

The drawings that show how the building goes together at the places where materials meet. Wall sections and their assemblies. Roof edges, parapets, and terminations. Window and door jambs, heads, and sills. Foundation and slab conditions. Stairs, railings, and their connections. Millwork and built-in joinery. Waterproofing and flashing at every transition where water can get in. Each detail carries dimensions, materials, tolerances, and the notes a builder needs to execute it. Detailing also means coordinating with structure and with mechanical, electrical, and plumbing so the detail is buildable and not just drawable. It is the part of a set where errors cost the most, because a bad detail is discovered on site rather than at review. It sits inside the wider construction documentation package rather than apart from it. It is also the part of that package a firm runs out of hours for first.

By working from your library instead of building a parallel one. Most firms have a set of details they trust, refined over years of projects and the occasional site problem. A remote detailer starts there: your standard details, your graphic conventions, your annotation style, your keynote system. Project specific details are drawn to match those conventions so a reviewer cannot tell which came from where. Where a standard detail does not fit a condition, the detailer flags it rather than quietly inventing a variant. Improvements that come out of a project go back into the library, so the asset grows rather than fragmenting across projects. Send us the library and three details you consider exemplary. Those three teach more about your office than any written standard does. They shorten the first month of an engagement more than a document ever will.

They are drawn against the accessibility standards your project is governed by, and we screen for that experience before presenting a candidate. Federal projects follow the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, published by the Department of Justice, with the technical criteria maintained by the U.S. Access Board. Most private work follows those plus the accessibility chapter of the building code your state has adopted, and California adds its own. In detailing, the requirements are dimensional and unforgiving. Door clearances and maneuvering space. Grab bar blocking. Counter and fixture heights, ramp slope and landings, threshold height, and handrail extensions. Blocking and substrate get drawn, because the requirement fails at rough-in when nobody drew it. Blocking that is missing at rough-in becomes demolition later, which is the expensive version of the same mistake. Compliance is certified by your architect of record, not by us.

Transitions. The places where two systems meet, two trades overlap, or a drawing stops just before the hard part. Roof to wall junctions, window head and sill flashing, and foundation to wall waterproofing. Then dissimilar material joints, expansion and control joints, and anything at a change in plane. The second category is details that were drawn correctly in isolation but conflict with a structural member or a duct that arrived later. Both are reduced the same way. Draw the transition rather than referencing it. Coordinate against the consultant models before issue, and note the tolerance instead of assuming a perfect condition. A detailer who has answered contractor questions on U.S. projects draws differently from one who has not. That experience is a selection criterion when we present candidates, and it is worth asking about directly.

Yes, and for most firms that is the working rhythm. A principal or project architect sketches the intent, on paper or over a screenshot. The detailer develops it into a drawn, dimensioned, annotated detail that matches the office standard. Redlines on an issued set come back the same way. Because the professional works your hours, a sketch sent in the morning comes back the same day. It does not arrive the following morning, which is when a deadline gets lost. That loop is what makes the arrangement feel like an in-house drafter rather than a vendor. Over a few months the detailer learns how your firm resolves recurring conditions and needs fewer sketches to get there. That is the part a per-detail vendor never reaches, because nobody stays long enough to learn it.