Andrew Essary

## Key Points - Structural engineer for 10 years. Ownership side — tenant interiors, few developers. Transferred to a GC affiliated with Standard Communities. Affordable housing. Becoming vertical OAC under one roof. - Documents are the biggest problem: owners rep/architect/contractor cycle of cross-comparing estimates vs drawings, specs, notes without deep dives - Every project: bid permit drawings → then budget overruns during design development to CD. "How did we get over budget by 15%?" - Budget busts depend on building type. Big commercial: glazing, contractor assumptions, architectural finishes. MEP is hardest to coordinate — waiting for structural, high specificity at the end. ## Pain Points Mentioned - Cross-comparing estimates vs drawings without doing a deep dive — wants "quick feeling" of where things are off to ask the right questions - QA/QC with building codes across municipalities, state codes, university standards, affordable housing standards — "web of complexity, different building codes, what is the local twist" - Architects need help navigating the "technical web of junk" — building this type in this municipality, help me read the code - Medium GCs don't always use BIM/full Autodesk — lots still done by subs with notes, not every project is a new stadium ## Product Feedback - Ranked needs: (1) QA/QC — top, highest value. (2) Q&A on drawings — "is there a detail, I'm looking for X". (3) Estimating — good tools exist, subs are equipped. - Suggested: pick a building type, focus on building systems where there's enough complexity. MEP is a good place — hardest to coordinate. - Adobe starting to put Q&A in their tools — but only text search. Wants visual understanding: "is this truly a coordinated set?" - Cross-discipline coordination: "did you put a wall in a place" — even things covered only in notes, not BIM ## Next Steps - Focus on building type with high MEP coordination complexity