Architect

[Dark Scares]

The city is telling me that I have to have the interior plans for our haunt professionally drawn up by a architect. I am going to development department today to see if I can find out the name of the firms that have drawn other haunts up in the past, being that I am thinking this is something that most architects are not familiar with.

Any thoughts or has anyone else had to deal with this situation?

[rwrussom]

Where are you located?

Here is recent thread on same subject:

http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_ho...ad.php?t=12114

Hopefully that works.

[Dark Scares]

I am in located Arizona. Thanks for the link...I don't do well with the search here for some reason LOL

My son will be doing them in Autocad first as well, so hopefully it won't end up costing us too much. But I have gone over this with the safety inspector many times and he insists that it needs to be done professionally that they will know code. But this is such a specialized thing.

[rwrussom]

Most of your issues will be fire marshall driven, so bow to him and find out what he wants to see. Battling over code with them is a loosing battle.

Having the event viewed as a temporary installation vs a permanent one will also make a difference. Many issues will be effected by occupancy loads. You may have big dreams, but a scaled back approach here will help you.

good luck

[Dark Scares]

I have been lucky that I have been doing it by the books the whole way, and have been talking with the fire and safety inspector and once he realized I had done my homework has been very helpful He is offering to go over the plans with me before taking it to the architect so it goes smoothly.

We have the building secured and it is 14,000 sf I don;t know if you would consider that small. LOL

[icandrawem2]

Randy is right, the fire marshal usually has the final word on alot of the life safety issues, even if your design is by the books. Things like your required number of exits, exit travel distance, exit width, will all be determined by your occupancy load and the occupancy type. Usually when I design for someone, I will be working alongside an architect or engineer who will sign and seal the drawings for the building permit application, but that all depends on your local jurisdiciton. Some architects wont just take your drawings and seal them, they will want to create them themselves. This happens to me some as I am not a licensed design professional.

[Dark Scares]

I had another meeting with the fire and safety inspector today. He has been very helpful but we are having a hard time finding an architect willing to take on the project My son who is a 4th year engineering student already has it drawn up on auto cad but either I think the project is too small or they don't feel comfortable enough with a project that is not the norm. I have already had one pull out. And obviously we are on a time crunch now.

Does anyone have a recommendation for someone they have used, that would be licensed in the state of Arizona?

[Darkangel]

Post on Craigslist, you'll probably get dozens of people interested since they are not so busy these days due to lack of construction.

Good luck,
DA

[zombietoxin]

Just finishing up this process. All good advice left here.

Unfortunately, haunted attractions are rarely coded as such and your architect needs to work with local codes offices to get things straight so you can pass. For instance, they ended up using the same coding requirements for museums to approximate our requirements. There were some ups and downs to this, so you really have to stay on top of the process so they don't lead you needlessly down a wrong path.

This process (and a slow architect) cost us the 2010 season even though we started in November of 2009. All good though- we're moving forward. As a result of this coding we were forced to build permanent restroom facilities- another cost, both in material and mechanical drawings. In fact we ended up with bills for three desings- the architectural, mechanical and sprinkler.

Good luck!