Design & Documents

Shop Drawings

Detailed fabrication and installation drawings prepared by a subcontractor or supplier, submitted for review before work is built.

Shop drawings are the detailed drawings a fabricator, subcontractor, or manufacturer prepares to show exactly how their portion of the work will be built and installed — structural steel connections, ductwork layouts, precast panels, curtain wall assemblies. They translate the designer's intent into buildable, dimensioned detail.

They're a common type of submittal: the design team reviews shop drawings to confirm the fabricator interpreted the contract documents correctly before anything is cut or poured. Catching a coordination error on a shop drawing is far cheaper than catching it in the field.

Related terms

Submittal

Product data, shop drawings, or samples a subcontractor submits for the design team to review before fabricating or ordering.

As-Built Drawings

Marked-up drawings showing how the project was actually built, including every field change from the original design.

RFI (Request for Information)

A formal question from the contractor to the design team to resolve something the drawings or specs don't clearly answer.

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