As already presented by the architect of Maisons SIC, our family business, which this year celebrates 50 years of building individual houses, has its own in-house design office. Within it, the designer-designers have a key role in adapting the plans of new houses to the wishes of the customers.
Draftsman-designer: concretize, on screen, the project born in the head of an architect
The profession of building draftsman is associated with the most varied projects in construction. As explained by Onisep, the draftsman “define the architecture of a work using plans or 3D images, so that it can be built with precision. This professional calculates the dimensions according to the documents provided by the architect, draws up the plans and diagrams of the work to be carried out and strives to translate the initial idea as faithfully as possible, taking into account the technical data transmitted by the engineers. . It constitutes a digital model of the building. This virtual model allows you to edit the detail plan of each part with its different views. There are also draftsmen in other industrial sectors (automotive, aeronautics, mechanics, plastics).”
Maisons SIC, a family business where it is good to work
Fabrice Rimonteil is a design draftsman at Maisons SIC since 2016. A company he knew well since he had already worked there 10 years ago. “Following the crisis, I had been made redundant, I had left for a design office, at a competitor, in Villeneuve sur Lot then I re-applied to Maisons SIC in 2016. They knew me, I already knew them too and I live right next door, I'm from the region, only 3 kilometers away.”
The one who was destined to do sports studies rugby or landscape gardening discovered, through his taste for drawing, the profession of designer and passed a BEP in Villeneuve sur Lot then a Bac Pro in Bordeaux. Today, his job pleases him enormously because, in the creation of plans, each day is different. Especially since Maisons SIC is a pleasant, family-run business with a good atmosphere.
The very concrete profession of draftsman-designer
The design draftsman has few direct links with the client, working mainly with the sales representatives and a little with the site managers. He therefore receives the files from the sales representatives, who first go through Caroline Cantaloube, the architect of the design office. The sales representatives have a catalog of houses Maisons SIC but it very often happens that customers arrive with their own plans. The design draftsman must then clean up the plan on the software to be able to cost it later. Indeed, once the flat drawing is done, with the slabs, roofs, basements and foundations, it is possible to launch the calculation software, which will give the prices for all the supplies of the house. The principle is to fall well within the customer's budget.
This therefore creates a quote. The designer designers will take out a notice, with the final price and send everything back to the sales representative so that he can present it to the customer. This plan will then serve as a working basis to sell the house to the client.
Once the project is signed, the sales people will set up an "allowed" project and it will be necessary for the draftsman to deepen his work a little more, to create the sections, the facades, the insertions, the ground plans, the location plans, in order to be able to submit the permit. Then you have to encrypt the contract again. Without the plans made by the draftsman, no permit. And once the permit and the loans have been granted, an update is made with the supervisors. There, the electrical plans are discussed, even new modifications to be made. The file then goes back to the design office to redo the electrical and evacuation plans, and it goes to order the octopuses, etc. Plans that will then be used by the works supervisors until the end of the site. In a bit to all the craftsmen involved in the construction of the detached house.
“I feel like I'm doing a useful job because I help people find accommodation a little,” admits Fabrice Rimonteil. “So we start either from catalog houses or houses that customers have designed. And every morning, we have a different work schedule: it can be a preliminary project, permit modifications, a contract to be made, a permit... It's a different job all the time.”
Only small difficulty, sometimes: “those with big budgets would almost like to have one bathroom per room but with the RE 2020, it is not advisable to put too many 20ft showers. Today, we are going to have more constraints: all large openings must face south, avoid covered terraces, reinforcement of insulation, pay attention to insulation, electric heating means banned…”
