How we work.
Writing a specification means asking what the drawings say about each item. For most items the answer is already on the sheets. For some it isn’t, and those are the ones that turn into RFIs and change orders if nobody asks before bid. So we ask first, and write after.
1. We read the whole set
Every schedule and every legend, one mark at a time, and the notes on the details too, because a note on a detail often never reaches a schedule or a keynote legend. Each mark ends up with an architectural technical section, or with a note that someone else covers it. Your office organizes its drawings its own way, and we read them the way they are, so there is no manual to send us and no standard to adopt.
2. We decide where each item belongs
We call this laning. The drawings say which item and where it goes. The specifications say what it is and how it is installed. For each item there are four possibilities:
- The drawings carry it fully, and the specifications refer to them.
- The drawings show where it goes, and the specifications carry the product.
- Both carry it, so the two are checked against each other before the set is issued.
- Neither carries it. That becomes a question for you.
When the same thing is stated in two places, sooner or later the two disagree, so we try to state each thing once. The same care applies at the line between you and your consultants. Concrete, masonry, metals, rough carpentry and sitework are often claimed by more than one discipline. We check each of those sections so that nothing is covered twice and, more important, nothing is left uncovered.
3. The Specifications Coordination Report
The questions come to you in a written report, before writing starts. Each one is ranked by what it costs to leave it:
- A — blocks writing. A section cannot be finished until it is answered.
- B — costs money in the field. Buildable as drawn, but likely to produce an RFI, a change order, or two bidders pricing different things.
- C — tidy-up. Real and cheap to fix.
Each item stands on its own, so you can forward one to whoever needs to answer it. It is a report, not redlines on your sheets. The report also proposes a table of contents for the specifications. When you approve it, that list is the scope.
You can engage the report on its own. It is prepaid, it is yours to keep, and its fee is credited in full if you go on to the specifications.
4. Architectural Technical Specifications
Once you give your decisions, we write the sections from current masters, coordinated to the set you will issue. Where the project allows alternates, the performance requirements are written so an equal product can actually be evaluated, and each named product is checked against them. Writing goes ahead on everything that doesn’t depend on an open question, so a few open questions don’t hold up the rest.
Where AI fits
Specifications have always been written from masters, edited under a specifier’s direction: by red pen, then on screen, and now with AI. A set carries thousands of marks, and checking all of them by hand is not practical. AI does that exhaustive reading under our direction, covering every mark, every cross-reference against the actual section list, every line of the master rather than only the lines a template left switched on. The specifier decides what stays, and answers for it. Where a requirement has no source, it is raised as a question, never filled in with a guess.
The Front End, separately
Divisions 00 and 01 set the procurement terms and general requirements, which is where the design team’s exposure is defined. It is a separate service, quoted on its own. It depends very little on the drawings, so it can start in Design Development, and it should, because owner review of it usually takes longer than anything else in the Project Manual. We write the design team’s role to match the agreement you actually have, so Division 01 doesn’t commit you to services outside it.