Time Saver Standards for Architectural Design Data

Abstract

Gordon Tully, AIA, Steven Winter Associates, 50 Washington Street, Norwalk, CT 06854. With this the Seventh edition, a 60-year publishing tradition continues for Time-Saver Standards. Conceived in the mid- 1930s as a compilation of reference articles, Time-Saver Standards features first appeared in American Architect, which subsequently merged with and continued the series in Architectural Record. The first hardbound edition of Time-Saver Standards was published in 1946, with the purpose then stated as [to assist in] “the greatest possible efficiency in drafting, design and specification writing.” In the Second Edition in 1950, the editorial intent was described as “[a volume of] carefully edited reference data in condensed graphic style.” One contribution from this edition, authored by Sterling M. Palm, appears as a reprint in the present Volume’s Appendix. In the Third Edition of 1954, the Preface offered the commentary, “the underlying formula of these pages was established in 1935. Since 1937, Architectural Record has been presenting each month, articles, graphs, tables and charts, with a minimum of verbiage...its compilation in Time-Saver Standards was a ‘workbook’ of material of this kind.” The Fourth edition of Time-Saver Standards, published in 1966, was the first edited by John Hancock Callender, who continued as Editor-in-Chief for the subsequent Fifth and Sixth editions. In his 1966 Preface, he wrote that the volume was “intended primarily to meet the needs of those who design buildings [and]—almost equally useful to draftsmen, contractors, superintendents, maintenance engineers, and students—to all in fact who design, construct and maintain buildings.” The Preface to each ensuing edition carried short statements by the Editor-in-Chief. In the Fifth edition (1974), perhaps in relief of many months of editing, John Hancock Calendar offered that, Now and again we hear it said that building has not changed significantly since the age of the pyramids. Anyone who subscribes to this view should be given the task of trying to keep Time-Saver Standards up to date. Society’s needs and aspirations are constantly changing, making new demands on buildings; functional requirements change and new building types appear; building materials proliferate and new building techniques come into use, without displacing the old. The result is a constant increase in the amount of technical data needed by building designers. In his Preface to Sixth edition (1982), John Hancock Callender used the occasion to comment upon the need to adopt metrication in the U. S. building industry. The present edition carries metric equivalents throughout the text wherever practical. The Appendix to the present Volume carries the most recent update of the ASTM standard on metrication, along with an introduction written for architects. In preparing this the Seventh edition, the first revision in more than a dozen years, the editors were challenged in many respects. This is evident in the fact that the volume has been almost entirely rewritten, with new articles by over eighty authors. It is also evident in its new format and contents, expanded to include “Architectural Fundamentals.” Such dramatic changes respond to the substantial renewal of architectural knowledge and practice in the past decade. New materiasl and construction methods have replaced standard practices of even a dozen years ago. There is since then new information and recommended practices in architecture and new ways of communicating information throughout the architectural and building professions. Some of the topics in the present volume were not even identified much less considered as critical issues when the last edition of this volume was published. Updated design data and product details are increasingly available in electronic form from manufacturers, assisted by yearly updates in McGraw-Hill’s Sweet’s Catalog File. At the same time, the design fundamentals and selection guidelines by which to locate and evaluate such data become all the more critical. All of the articles in the present edition are written to assist the architect in the general principles of understanding, selecting and evaluating the professional information and knowledge needed for practice. Each article lists key references within each topic. Thus, at the beginning of its second half-century of publication, the purpose of the Seventh Edition of Time-Saver Standards can be summarized as a “knowledge guide”—a comprehensive overview of the fundamental knowledge and technology required for exemplary architectural practice. “Knowledge building” itself is an act of creation. How one understands and thinks about architecture and its process of construction is part of the creative design process. Understanding the knowledge base of architecture is a process that itself can “be built” upon a solid framework, constructed of understandable parts and in a manner that reveals insights and connections. The editors and authors of Time-Saver Standards hope to inform, and also to inspire, the reader in pursuit of that endeavor.