How to Document a Custom Pattern
Introduction
Custom patterns are being incorporated into buildings with greater prevalence now. The implementation of laser cutting, CNC, and other machinery (and the subsequent cost lowering over the years) — have provided the ability to customize architectural components like sun screens and railings per project more readily available to a wider range of clientele.
For some designers, this allows a level of uniqueness and specificity that was previously left to off-the-shelf components. With the advent of AI, one can assume that customization like railing patterns is not going to stop anytime soon.
Not a Design Process
This isn’t meant as a design guide for custom patterns, but rather how to document a pattern. Regardless of your opinions on patterns, this is just a how-to.
End Goal
The first part is to understand what the end goal is. All patterns on drawings (and really all architectural drawings) are representations. Think about a wall drawn in plan… while it will be composed of studs, layers, and things such as corner beads and fasteners… a lot of that will be lost in the drawings. And instead the wall type, tag, schedule, specifications, or another method will handle the detail required to convey the intended construction.
The same generally goes for a pattern regardless of the type or use.