What is measured drawing?

Architecturally, it refers to drawings made to exact specification of buildings already built (term: as-built drawings). While the drawings used for building up you house is called working drawing, measured drawing can easily be the hardest part of all to do. Well, you are measuring the building exactly the way it is, which may perhaps include the later modifications, defects, and as the time goes by, some building owners eventually erect a whole new floor inside the building while keeping the facade intact. 

I am sure any Malaysian who read this blog is familiar with Merdeka Square and the historical buildings along the stretch of the road. Those are the buildings we are required to measure! Can you imagine the intricate ornaments, masonry, joineries, ironmongeries and structural features we need to know up to a millimeter in deviation. I did bluff a few unreacable areas anyway, measuring the curves relative to the bricks near them. Shuusssh.. Dont tell my lecturer!

Strata - Stay Young 

 How detailed the drawings should be?

Well, technically the drawings should provide enough construction method, detailed of every feature to the extent that we can build the exact same building with at least 90% similarity. 

Everything started on 7th May 07, with a long brief given by our lecturer. Spirits were high that time, after we were shown drawings of previous batches. They are a marvel. Came the next day (spirits still high up), we went to our assigned building (I and 5 others got the old Sanitary Board building, presently a court and a panggung). Problems started to arise there, most notably with the permission issue. Lack of coordination from KeKKWa (Kementerian Kebudayaan, Warisan, blabla) and DBKL lead us to walking here and there just for the sake of getting permission into the building. Birocracy, is the issue that really slows Malaysia down. For one week, we only ended up measuring the façade, domes, and roof.

Birocracy, is the issue that really slows Malaysia down

*mine is number 1.

Skylift was given to us (how else we gonna measure the wall skirtings, moldings, various arches (27 different types! Yikes), windows and detailings). We put it to good use. Very good use. Hehe.. Since our building is located just opposite Masjid Jamek STAR Station, whenever a train went by, the vibrations really scared the shit out of us. Having the skylift pushed to the topmost limit, even a slight vibration at the ground level will give quite a noticeable sway at the top. But it was fun to be frank, after all, who else can say that they once climbed onto the dome and walking on the roof of that building?  

At first, we thought the hardest part was to measure the façade. But we were wrong. It was the interior that took us days to figure out. Why? Well, do you notice that old buildings have ceilings around 5 meters high (15 feet)? Our building (in my opinion) originally has 2 floors, with 1 mezzanine floor. But now it has 4 floors! The very *insightful* DBKL had sandwitched 2 floors between the original twos! And in my opinion (again), the construction was very crude, without respect at all to the historical value of such buildings.

We already done taking the measurement last Saturday, and now are putting the measurement to paper and making scaled drawings of them. Currently I am drawing the elevation (I must get it done by tomorrow) and will need to draw details later.

Bye! See again in 4 weeks.

=)

1 Comments

a n w a r i June 06, 2007 http://www.anwarii.com Votes: +0	Building no 2 tu building aku buat.. huhu.. susah siot... see at my pages.. report abuse vote down vote up

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