In the beginning…I was a detailer. A detailer’s job is to deal with the details of the shop drawings, hardware schedule, and orders for a project’s doors, frames, and hardware, and sometimes specialty products. In our office, the detailers also did much of the estimating. It was where I learned a lot about door openings, and made some of my most stupendous mistakes (sorry, Bob & Ralph).
Working as a detailer also gave me an immense appreciation for difficult coordination. One of the most common problem applications is incorrect coordination of the hold-open position – like this previous Fixed-it Friday photo. I saw the doors below during one of our college tours – not only are the cross-corridor doors on pocket pivots and held open parallel to the corridor walls, the stair door is ALSO on pocket pivots and creates a perfect 90-degree corner with one of the corridor doors. The geometric flooring increases the level of difficulty, AND the doors are more than 3 feet wide and have the correctly sized fire exit hardware!
This is coordination to be celebrated! In fact, if you can prove to me that you were the detailer for this pocket door application (or otherwise responsible for the details), I’ll send you something from the iDigHardware prize vault! If you think it looks familiar, the university is in Texas.
UPDATE: There were some questions about the application shown in these photos, so I answered them in a follow-up post.
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That is a sight to behold! Hat’s off to that detailer!
I’m glad someone else appreciates it! 🙂
– Lori
Nice but not new, we were doing these back in the early 80’s for high end highrise floors.
No, not a “new” application, but I was impressed!
– Lori
The detailer did a great job and rarely seen these days the Job Super did a great job keeping the drywall contractor to hold his margins.
The stair frame is a shadow line frame and the margin looks great as well as the pocket around the doors is parallel with the doors which is fairly rare.
Good job by all trades. – Did you swing them closed and check margins?
I didn’t touch the doors because I was trying to blend in as a normal parent on a college tour. I do enough things to embarrass the kids.
– Lori
I don’t think I would’ve been able to resist. My wife hates when I get distracted by dfh while we are out and about.
I agree with Paul, you can detail those openings perfectly until you are blue in the face but if the actual tradesmen building and installing do not do their jobs then it won’t matter how well you detailed it.
It is refreshing to see the correct size panic. Great job to all involved with these openings. As someone involved with field repairs it is nice to see a success story rather than the everything is wrong fix it now stories.
….’Cause taking pics of doors is what normal parents do…. 😉
I try to act like it’s a normal thing…at least I don’t stop the tour so I can take photos of my red-faced kid in front of the bronze statue at each school! 🙂
– Lori
Nice. Very well thought out. CLEAN
How coincidental, I am working on a hotel with a similar pocket application. Mine are elevator lobby doors. I had to send a RFI regarding the shaft wall which is detailed too far out. I wish I had attached this photo to my RFI. “This is what it should look like”. “New” for me.
Wow! Up until now, I’ve only seen gorgeous applications like this in my dreams!
Congratulations to whomever is responsible for this job!
I can just hear it ‘There’s goes mom taking pictures of doors & hardware again…’ – almost as strange as those Architects!
(of which I’m one)
Very nice detailing & coordination too!
That’s some Bad-assery right there.
Very nice finished work. A vision plus a lot of thought and attention here that’s now materialized into objectively elegant simplicity. The finished work always looks easy when well-executed.
Yep, I’m impressed. Thanks for posting!
Yes, it is great to see a detailed that knows their stuff.
As an installation company, I say hats off to the installer as well.
Fine job all around, it takes a coordinated effort to get thing correct.
Robert
I did not detail, supply or install these openings, I’ve walked through them few dozens times. Pulled cable down that corridor a few times too!
Of course I do know the Architect who designed these and several other openings at this University! I’m not going to give away the location!
I sent you some details from 1998 when this project was designed via email. The corners at the end of the lobby are steel angles, 20 years on still looking good. Glad you liked it.
Dean,
Awesome, really well worked out. Keep up the good work.
Thanks.
photos saved to show future clients as reference – SO CLEAN!
All,
As others have written, this is a well thought out detail job, but the project manager and installers deserve credit as well. Framing/electrical/drywall/hardware trades all had to do their jobs to perfection to pull this off so well. Making this come together so well took a lot of coordination. The 2 doors at 90 degrees to one another are impressive, but the door in the thin wall on the right is really impressive. The force the door control is exerting on this door (and wall) are quite high with the doors in the pocket. Hopefully the thin wall is well supported to the drywall doesn’t crack over time.
David
You’re right – everyone involved has to do their job in order for the details to turn out as planned. But I don’t think too many framing/electrical/drywall people read iDigHardware. 🙂 The good news is – this project was done in 1998 and is still looking good!
– Lori
Very nice job. Only one question, what closer system are they using? Are spring hinges able to use in that case?
Hi Francesco –
I think closers would be a better choice than spring hinges for this application. I wrote a follow-up post yesterday that talks about the type of closer I would use: https://idighardware.com/2018/08/pocket-pivot-follow-up/.
– Lori
Thank you Lori, I’ve taken note of that solution!
Very Nice !