Multifamily sets for practices in New York, Chicago and beyond
What transfers to any market, and what stays with your office: production in your Revit model and template, under your architect of record, wherever the building is filed.
What this page covers
The founder's record is in California: the project record lists multifamily buildings of up to 1,241 units, most of them in Los Angeles. The studio also takes work from practices elsewhere in the country, and this page sets out how that work divides. Most of a multifamily set is production that does not depend on the city it is filed in. The parts that do depend on the city stay with your office.
What transfers to any market
A floor plan, a wall section, an enlarged unit plan and a door schedule are drawn the same way in Brooklyn, Chicago or Columbus. The work that transfers:
- Production in your model. Every sheet is built in your Revit model, on your template and to your graphic standards, in your cloud model or file share under your worksharing rules. The standards handoff guide lists what to share at kickoff.
- Design development and CD packages. Assemblies, unit plans, building and wall sections, enlarged plans, details and model schedules; see design development and construction documents.
- The title-block check. Before any issue, each sheet passes the same 14-point check: numbers, titles, dates, revisions, scales, callouts and consultant references matched across the set.
- The review log. Every issue arrives with a dated log of what changed, what was coordinated and which questions need a decision from your office.
- Working hours. The team that draws works on Brasília time, four to five hours ahead of the Pacific and one to two hours ahead of New York depending on the season, so the working day overlaps with an East Coast or Midwest office.
What stays with your office
The local layer of a set belongs to the practice that files it. In every market outside California, your office keeps:
- Code and zoning analysis. The zoning calculations, the local code reading and the code sheets that state them. The studio draws the code diagrams your office specifies and ties them to the model, and your office owns the analysis behind them.
- The filing. The application, the portal account and the relationship with the building department.
- Responsible control and the stamp. Every set is issued under your architect of record's stamp and under the rules of the state that licenses the stamp. The responsible control guide sets out the California rule; other states set their own terms, and your office applies them.
New York City
Multifamily projects in New York City are filed with the Department of Buildings through DOB NOW: Build, the online platform for job filings. Only a licensed design professional may submit a job filing there, and a new building takes its own application (DOB NOW: Build FAQs).
Plan examination returns objections on the filing, which the filing professional resolves, comments on and marks as resolved in the platform. The work behind each objection is often a revised sheet: a corrected dimension, a detail that answers a code section, a schedule brought into line with the plan. Revised sheets for objections can be part of a studio package, with your office holding the filing and the responses in DOB NOW.
The governing codes are the 2022 NYC Construction Codes, which apply to projects filed on or after November 7, 2022, and the Zoning Resolution. Both contain city-specific requirements that differ from the model codes, and both stay with your office's code analysis.
Chicago
Chicago's construction codes were rewritten in the Phase 2 code modernization adopted in 2019. The 2019 Chicago Building Code, based on the 2018 International Building Code, applies to most permit applications started on or after August 1, 2020 (City of Chicago). For a practice working in Chicago, that alignment with the model codes means the drawing conventions of a Chicago multifamily set are close to those in other IBC jurisdictions, with the City's amendments layered on.
The Department of Buildings offers several permit programs. The Standard Plan Review program is the main path for building permit applications that require drawn plans. The Self-Certified Permit Application program lets a qualified design professional take full responsibility for code compliance on eligible small and mid-sized projects in place of plan review by City staff. The Express Permit program covers repair work, some small improvements and administrative changes. The choice of program and the certification belong to your office.
The three-flats and six-flats common across Chicago's neighborhoods are small, repetitive buildings, and a set for one follows the same production steps as any walk-up: plans, elevations, wall sections, enlarged units and schedules drawn in your model.
Other states
The same division applies wherever the building is: the studio draws, coordinates and checks in your model, and your office holds the code analysis, the filing and the stamp under your state's rules. In New York State the rules on who may prepare documents under a licensee's supervision are stricter than in most states, and a practice there should confirm its own arrangement with counsel before the first package.
Starting outside California
The first engagement is a pilot: one package on a live set, a fixed fee agreed up front, back in about two weeks. A DD or CD package in your model is the usual first package for a practice outside California, because it is the work that transfers most directly. Send the brief with the jurisdiction and the Revit version, and the reply is a scope letter with a fixed fee and a start date.