Electronic Data Transfer Agreement 1

[SteelPE]

Recently I have been asked to sign an Electronic Data Transfer Agreement in order to receive CAD drawings from an architect. This is the second time I have been asked to sign such an agreement. In short, the agreement says that the drawings are for reference only an the architect has no responsibility if the information contained with the drawings is correct. Huh????? how am I suppose to design a building if your drawings are for reference only.

What do others do in this instance? Seems like I am forced to sign their agreement or not get any help from their CAD files.

 

[msquared48]

Personally, I'd document to the hilt, give them a timeline, and put the project down if I did not receive thee information needed to do the project. It is not your job to do the Architect's job for him. I'd also CC the client with any correspondence.

Oh, and if the Architect does not think that you are part of the team, but the owner does, just communicate with the owner. Things will change one way or the other.



Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[TLHS]

Yeah, this could be a relatively easy sell to the owner to get him to strongarm the architect a little. Frame it as the architect refusing to give you verified information. This isn't you refusing to sign something. It's the architect being unwilling to check and stand behind their work.

Hell, if you're seperately contracted, get the owner to intervene as the intermediary in distributing these documents. They should be able to demand some kind of proper non-bullshit issuance for design. They need to issue some frozen baseline for design, be it a model or drawings.

 

[dik]

I would request a fully dimensioned set of drawings from the Architect, through the Owner, and advise them that the lack of information is delaying the project.

Dik

 

[IRstuff]

"day for day slip" usually gets the customer's attention.

TTFN
faq731-376

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[dik]

If major changes were made, then I would advise them that there will be a fee for this additional work, and there could be additional time required. My earlier comment about asking for hard copy of drawings would be in writing.

Dik

 

[JLNJ]

The architect probably figures he ought to be holding your contract!

How did we even end up down that road where we all work for the architect?

 

[CELinOttawa]

Because clients respond to the sell, and don't want to hear "no" or "that's cost prohibitive".... As a result, the Architects lead and the projects virtually all go over budget.

 

[RHTPE]

If the CAD technician working for the architect understood what is necessary for the building layout, AND if the architect also understood that his/her CAD technician needed time and direction to produce a workable drawing, all would be good and the paper drawings could be held as the standard.

Since the proliferation of CAD, I have maintained that there should be one additional test before any design professional is granted a license: Take your PAPER drawing and a tape measure into the field and lay out the work WITHOUT referring back to your CAD model. If the paper drawing provides adequate information and you can indeed do the layout, then you pass the test.

I recently had a provide where the architect provided an angle from a main (orthogonal) grid line to locate a skewed grid line. No where in the drawings was there any hint as to where the skewed line might intersect the other grid line. Yet in order to obtain the contact drawings in CAD format, a similar agreement had to be signed AND the specifications were clear that ONLY the paper drawings were to be considered correct. The example I cite is just one out of dozens of layout conundrums that the project presented. And I was only working on the foundation to produce layout drawings for the concrete contractor. Somehow it got built, but I'm sure at great cost to many of the subs on the job.


Ralph
Structures Consulting
Northeast USA

 

[masterthenight]

I know this is an old post, but I feel like there are several factors at play here which are getting overlapped.

1. You need Arch drawings to do work. It is not common to sign releases between team members on the design side; however, since your contract is with the owner, I can kind of see why the Arch is requiring this - because they dont have a contract with you. In my humble opinion, I wouldn't read into the release too much. It's CYA for the Arch who sounds like they are not up to speed with the rest of the team. They should actually be ahead of everyone else and coordinating all efforts, that's their job.

2. If you have a contract with the owner, that is who you should be communicating with. All requests for information should go through them since they are your client. It is therefore their responsibility to get you what you need when you need it, which leads to #3.

3. You need to be clear from the beginning what you need and when you need it. This is a VERY common challenge in our industry. Architects who only gives pieces of the drawing set and don't give a full set or important sheets (ie sections) until the week of the due date. This is something you have to watch for and protect yourself against. If you don't draw a boundary of what you expect with your client (see #2), then delay in getting information will eat you alive. And it's kind of your fault for not being more clear and firm in the first place.

4. It is also critical to, somehow, quantify how many design changes/iterations are in your fee. Again, this is pre-planning stuff and you should be watching for this and playing defense to protect yourself. Any good consultant worth their weight on a team is understanding of design developments and even significant changes during the design phase. But it very much depends on the level of communication within the team, the leadership of the Architect and your relationship with the Architect/Owner. Good relationships respect your time and communicate well. Bad relationships don't. Sounds like you are in the latter category from the one-sided picture you have shared. Either way, what you will put up with depends on your fee (which hopefully has room for this type of thing), your relationships, how you are treated and the level of hard work you are willing to put forth in order to be seen as a responsive team member for consideration on future projects. We get last minute changes all the time and handle them differently depending on the client.

Sounds like your deadline was last week, but hopefully this gives a little insight into the multitude of complex factors I feel are at play here.

 

[cvg]

mtn nailed it. sounds like there has definitely been some communication break downs and perhaps lines of communication have been crossed. good communication and coordination usually takes care of this, but that requires a good project manager to make it happen. generally the architect acts as project manager, but it sounds as if they do not have a strong manager on this project.