Civil/Structural Design Review Guidelines

Yesterday, March 4 2016, I held a training at the office for a Basic Design Review Guidelines procedure specific for Civil and Structural discipline.

Design Review is the process of checking the design made by General Contractor for the Client (which we represent) if in accordance with Design Intent and Criteria.

I focused on 3 basic criteria of checking and I called them CCC. Cs are for Completeness, Consistency and Code compliance.

Completeness is the first criteria for checking. I suggest that do not go into the detail of checking first but rather check the completeness of the submittal. For a graduate to do this, we made a bunch of list as criteria for completeness i.e. report should contain the following:

1. Design Criteria
2. Material specifications used
3. Codes used
4. Complete design of the following:
1. Beam
2. Slab
3. Column
4. Foundation

Thus, a certain submittal can be return back to the contractor's designer if an incomplete submittal is provided.

Another set of criteria is Consistency. Consistency is important to determine if the design is following the intent of Design Criteria, Material specification and the code requirements. There must be consistency with the drawing, design criteria, geotechnical report and of course design report. For example, if the design criteria states that NSCP should be used as basis for design. It should be reflected in the drawing on the general notes, in the design report and in each design calculation of structural members.

Thus, a certain submittal can be return back to the contractor's designer if an inconsistent submittal is provided.

The last criteria is Code compliance. This must be the most important criteria among the three. This will surely take a lot of manhours for a reviewer. Experience and research is required to conduct the review and to determine if the submittal is in compliance with the code.

Thus, a certain submittal can be return back to the contractor's designer if a submittal is found not complying with the code.