Interior Detailing

Concept to Construction

David Kent Ballast

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780470916438
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Architekturdesign

The all-in-one interior detailing guide that unites creative and technical aspects

A well-executed interior space requires the successful combination of the creative and the technical. Interior Detailing bridges the gap between design and construction, and shows how to develop and transform design concepts into details that meet the constraints, functional requirements, and constructability issues that are part of any interior design element. It offers guidance on how design professionals can combine imaginative thinking and the application of technical resources to create interiors that are aesthetically pleasing, functionally superior, and environmentally sound. Interior Detailing:

• Includes 150 easy-to-understand details showing how to logically think through the design and development of an assembly so that it conforms to the designer's intent and meets the practical requirements of good construction
  
  

• Describes how to solve any detailing design problem in a rational way
  
  

• Contains conceptual and practical approaches to designing and detailing construction components thatform interior spaces
  
  

• Shows how a small number of principles can be used to solve nearly any detailing problem
  
  

This guide covers the subject of interior spaces comprehensively by balancing the contributions of physical beauty and structural integrity in one complete volume. By following the principles laid out in this book, interior designers and architects can plan for the construction of a unique interior environment more thoughtfully and with a clearer, better-defined purpose.

PART 1

ROADMAP TO SOLVING DETAILING PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 1

THE DESIGN/DETAILING PROCESS

1-1 INTRODUCTION

Detailing is that part of the project delivery process that lies roughly between initial conceptualization and final construction documentation. It is the point where the grand ideas of the designer meet the hard realities of construction fact. Although detailing is not spelled out as a separate design activity on proposals and invoices, happening mainly during design development but also during schematic design and construction drawing production, it is one of the most important aspects of a designer’s skill set. Detailing is really “designing a detail.”

Good detailing has many advantages. In addition to improving and enhancing design, it can reduce construction costs, minimize the designer’s liability, and speed the production of construction drawings. Detailing can also be a valuable link for outsourced work, either onshore or offshore, because it provides the vital aspect of good communication required for successful collaboration with outside production assistance. A design office can also use detailing as a training vehicle for young designers and as a way to create a signature style.

In many ways detailing has a schizophrenic nature. It is pure design as well as technics, intuitive as well as analytical, holistic as well as compartmentalized, left brain as well as right, fun as well as hard work, and quickly inspirational as well as time-consuming. The best detailers are those who can simultaneously occupy the worlds of creative designer and knowledgeable technician, switching from left brain to right brain as they work.

1-2 WHAT IS DETAILING?

Detailing can be thought of as a subset of interior design in general. It is a creative process of problem solving with constraints and choices aimed at translating broad design concepts into construction reality. Sometimes there are more constraints than choices and sometimes more choices than constraints. It is the designer’s task to know how to make the best choices and attempt to make constraints into assets. It is not just a technical activity but also a creative process.

Although detailing means different things to each designer, there are three basic things detailing does. First, it is a way fitting the pieces together. There must be a way of physically and visually connecting the various components of an interior space or architectural feature. For example, a doorframe must attach to a wall opening in some fashion regardless of how simple or complex the detail may be. Second, detailing solves functional problems, responding to the specific needs the interior space is trying to fulfill. For example, providing a moisture-resistant, durable surface is something a bar countertop must do, but there are innumerable ways that such a surface can be created. Thirdly, detailing is one of the most important ways to enhance the overall design intent of the project. The basic elements and principles of design, as well as broad design concepts, can be reinforced with the design of the smaller-scale details that make up a space.

Detailing as a Wicked Problem

Like interior or architectural design in general, detailing is a type of wicked problem. The term wicked problem was coined in 1973 by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber. Rittel was a theorist of design and planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Webber was an urban planner and professor of urban and regional planning, also at UC, Berkeley. Although the term often refers to very large-scale economic or political problems, like ending world hunger or improving the healthcare system, a design problem is also a perfect example of a wicked problem. An interior designer must understand the nature of wicked problems to be a good detailer while maintaining a practical business orientation toward completing a project on time and on budget.

There are several aspects to wicked problems that Rittel and Webber identified that are characteristic of interior design and architectural problems. Some of these are the following, in no particular order:

• There is no right or wrong solution. Given the same basic design or detailing problem with the same client, program, and constraints, 10 different designers will come up with 10 different solutions, all of which may be acceptable and generally solve the problem. Even with a very narrowly defined detailing problem, such as a wood doorframe placed in a wood stud partition, there may be one very common solution used by all designers in most situations, but never just one.

• There is no definite stopping point. Every designer has experienced the situation of wanting more time to improve the solution. Because there are so many variables to design problems, there are always more alternatives to explore or research to be done. However, the realities of interior design, including the designer’s budget, dictate that the best solution be selected at a particular time to complete the project. Often, this is the area where designers lose their business sense and spend more design time than they have budgeted.

• Constraints and resources to solve the problem change over time. In spite of the most detailed program and understanding of a problem, many things can change during a project. The client may change the budget or project requirements, new materials may come on the market or become scarce, construction costs may rise, or building codes may change. The designer is almost always shooting at a moving target.

• Often, a solution is required to fully understand the problem. Although various types of modeling, such as three-dimensional drawings, physical models, or full-size mockups may be used, the true test is to build the facility and see how it works. Modeling or even existing, similar facilities only provide a partial view of how the proposed solution will work.

• Every problem is unique. Interior design and architectural projects are, by their vary nature, unique. Even the same building type with the same client and the same program will vary depending on geographical location, budget, or time of construction. When looking at smaller detailing problems, such as how to design and install a kitchen cabinet, there may be identical ways of building the cabinet and mounting it on the wall, but it will still have variations in materials, finish, and hardware.

Although wicked design problems present many challenges to the interior designer, they are also what make the process and the profession valuable, interesting, and enjoyable.

1-3 THE DRAWING-THINKING-DRAWING CYCLE

Like other aspects of interior design, detailing is, for the most part, graphic problem solving. Designers use various types of graphics methods to study and resolve the issues they face. This is a cyclical process in which the designer begins with a thought, no matter how minor or undeveloped, sketches a representation of it on paper, looks at the image, and thinks about it and its implications. See Fig. 1-1. The cycle repeats, with each cycle refining the image until a complete resolution of the issue being studied is resolved. With each cycle three things, or some combination of the three, happen. The designer explores ideas, learns something, or makes a decision.

There are many ways that someone may represent their thoughts, but it usually takes the form of marks on paper, typically tracing paper. When the problem being investigated is a design or construction detail, multiple layers of tracing paper should be used to help refine the design. The first sketch may be a very rough idea of the solution, while successive tracings refine the image, retaining (tracing) those elements that seem to work and drawing new lines to reflect new or modified ideas.

One of the most important aspects of this type of graphic problem solving is that it must be done with the hand and on paper. The problem-solving process works in a unique way when eye, hand, paper, and brain are intimately connected through this technique. Contrary to what some designers may believe, a computer is not a good instrument for this type of work. Like using a sharp pencil, the computer, regardless of the drawing or sketching program being used, slows the process of recording ideas and is too precise early in the problem-solving process. Manipulating a computer generally gets in the way of the rapid, multilevel thought that the brain is capable of. Although there are several good sketching programs available, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional, the best method is still marker on tracing paper. No other method can respond to the variety of graphic methods of representing problems that designers use. A computer is most useful when a designer alternates between paper sketching for rough ideas and computer-aided design for exploring three-dimensional models that can be quickly developed and manipulated to view the image from multiple points of view.

Figure 1-1 The drawing-thinking-drawing cycle

1-4 PROCESS TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

Process Tools

Partly because design and detailing are types of wicked problems with no single answer or algorithm for solving them designers typically use analog representations of problems. An analog representation is one that relies on a naïve depiction of something rath...