Email #41 - Yellow Plans

Normally, the building plans used by all parties on a construction site are on white paper. Until recently I'd never seen any building plans that were not on white paper. So about a month ago when all the trades at Architecture Hall started using "yellow plans," I took notice. What's up with that?

As it was explained to me by Holly Higgins, a Mortenson Project Engineer, the first set of plans used on site are usually the bid documents themselves. As the job progresses, there are typically corrections or additions to these plans. For each change the architects submit an "ASI," or Architect's Supplemental Information. At Architecture Hall an unusually large number of ASI's were expected because of all the value engineering and other factors. Once most of these changes were known, they produced a second set of plans called the "conform set." This set was printed on yellow paper so there would be no mix-up with the white "bid set" documents. Very clever.

Pink is another color that I've seen construction managers use on site. For instance, during the construction of the Seattle Central Library, I noticed that one of the subcontractors had painted all their tool boxes pink. When I asked why, their foreman said it was because no one would steal a pink tool box.

During the construction of the new Seattle City Hall, I was told of a similar occurrence. Apparently the City Council and other politicos were always asking for site tours. As is commonly the case, the construction company had a stash of extra hardhats just for visitors. The problem was that lots of hardhats were not being returned at the end of the tours. One theory is that the politicos liked to keep them as souvenirs.

To solve the problem, the construction company started issuing pink hardhats to site visitors. After that, all hard hats were returned. And one city councilman started bringing his own hardhat because he was afraid of being photographed with a pink one on his head.

John Stamets
Oct. 24, 2006