Architecture firm drafting outsourcing rarely starts with the design and almost always with the volume that sits beneath it. Beneath a sketch design lies a mountain of sheets that require few design decisions and many hands: working up floor plans, updating sections, repeating details, processing revisions and getting an as-built set in order.
That work adds up to hundreds of hours your own drawing office does not always have. We take over exactly that part. We draft and model; we do not do engineering and we do not make design decisions.
The design stays with your firm; the detailing comes from us. Our people all have more than ten years of CAD experience and work in Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino. Every drawing goes through at least three review layers with us before your firm sees it again. We work remotely from our own office, with our own licences, and follow the drawing conventions your firm gives us. We respond within 1 to 2 working days of an enquiry.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
An as-built file we took on as outsourced drafting
For Firefly we received as-built material that was not clean in any respect. The existing drawings had been printed incorrectly, parts had been added by hand and legibility left a lot to be desired. With a file like that, a drafter can go two ways. He calls the client about every ambiguity, after which the project leader ends up doing the investigating anyway and outsourcing achieves little. Or he first reconstructs what is there himself and only then presents the genuinely open points. We chose the second.
Our drafters combed through the set, compared dimensions, marked contradictions and still delivered the whole thing cleanly. We have since completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings for this client. What started as a one-off revision round grew into a regular way of working together. We take two lessons from that work to every architecture firm that comes to us. The first is that messy input need not be a reason to delay outsourcing, but it does belong honestly in the estimate of hours.
The second is that questions should be bundled, so your firm deals with them once per meeting rather than every morning. On that same project we also experienced a deadline that could not slip. Our team then worked through evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours, and it even carried on during a planned holiday of Sam, our team leader. That is not a standard offer, but it does say something about how we handle a hard date.
What an architecture firm can outsource to us
We deliver 2D drafting and, where the project calls for it, 3D modelling. In concrete terms that means floor plans, sections, elevations, typical details, detail sheets and the associated sheet layout. We update existing DWG sets, process revision rounds and convert hand-drawn or outdated documents into a usable digital file. In Revit we model, place elevations and sections on sheets and make sure the annotation follows the model. We also build parametric families, in other words smart components that adapt to a different size or a new situation.
A drafter then draws a window frame or facade element once, after which it can be placed anywhere without further drafting. The material schedule is built in, so if the component changes, the schedule changes automatically. We can also clean up an existing family library. Whether cleaning up or rebuilding is wiser depends on the state of the library. If it is badly clogged with duplicate and half-working families, rebuilding is sometimes quicker than repairing, and we put that to you in advance.
We also say straight away what we do not do. We make no calculations, give no structural advice, handle no permits and make no design decisions. Our work is drafting and modelling, often in high volume and with a lot of repetition. That very repetition is what makes outsourcing attractive, because our large, variable team works through a set faster than two people doing it on the side. At the start we record which drawing types are included in the package, so there is no discussion about the scope afterwards.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
The delivered set and what comes next for your firm
We deliver in stages, not all at once at the end. A first section goes to your firm as soon as there is enough to comment on, and we collect feedback on it. We process that feedback and then the next section goes out. For your firm, that means a set that can already be checked halfway through, instead of a package that only becomes visible at the deadline. The delivery contains what you need to carry on: the source files in DWG, DXF or the Revit formats, STEP where needed, and the sheets as agreed. So we do not deliver a flat export nobody can work in any more. With standalone AutoCAD work, files go back and forth by email. On larger projects we use software you log into to follow the project, so your project leader does not have to ask how far along it is.
The follow-on process determines how we set up the set. If it goes to a contractor, we keep the sheet layout and dimensions traceable. If it goes back into your firm's own model, we pay attention to the structure, the naming and the placement of elements so the file can move on without any tidying up. The intellectual property of everything we draw belongs to you. We hold nothing back and deliver the complete set, including the families we built along the way. What a firm then does with that set is entirely up to its own organisation, even when the next stage lies with another party.
Drafting to your firm's layer structure and conventions
We work to your standard, not to a house style of our own. Before the first line is drawn, we ask for the title block, the layer structure, the line types, the hatches, the text sizes, the file naming and a few recent drawings from a live project. We give those reference drawings more weight than a written manual, because day-to-day practice in a drawing office almost always differs slightly from the document.
If we come across contradictions, for example two layers for the same type of line or a detail set up differently at two scales, we raise them. We do not make the call ourselves, because your firm has to be able to defend the set later.
In Revit we do the same with templates, view templates, view depth and filters. We adopt the existing set-up and keep it clean rather than building a second layer alongside it. At the first partial delivery we check together whether the layout is right, because that is when adjusting course is cheap. We work in our own environment with our own licences and always on the latest versions. If your firm runs an older release, we agree in advance which version we deliver back in.
For an architecture firm considering outsourcing its drafting, this is usually where it stands or falls: a set that looks as if your own team made it needs no clean-up round afterwards. We would rather go through these arrangements in half an hour at the start than in a correction round afterwards, because that saves both sides time.
Frequently asked questions about architecture firm drafting outsourcing
Hand your architectural drafting over to us
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.