Why Your Renovation Project Needs As-Built Documentation Before Design Begins
Every architect has a version of this story — you inherit a building and the existing drawings are either missing, wrong, or twenty years out of date. Starting design without verified existing conditions is the most expensive shortcut in architecture. Here's why LiDAR-based as-built documentation should be the first line item on every renovation scope.
The Story Every Architect Knows
Every architect has a version of this story. You inherit a building — a brownstone in Park Slope, a 1960s office in Hackensack, a mixed-use space in Stamford — and the existing drawings are either missing, wrong, or twenty years out of date. You start schematic design anyway, because the schedule doesn't wait. You get to DD and realize the ceiling heights are off by four inches, the column isn't where the plan said it was, and the mechanical chase your ductwork was supposed to run through doesn't actually exist.
Now you're redesigning. The GC is repricing. The client is asking why the timeline just moved.
This is the most expensive shortcut in architecture — starting design without verified existing conditions.
What LiDAR-Based As-Builts Actually Deliver
As-built documentation created from LiDAR scan data eliminates this risk entirely. A LiDAR scanner captures millions of spatial data points in a single site visit, producing a dimensionally accurate digital record of the building as it exists today — not as it was drawn in 1987. Walls, ceilings, floors, columns, openings, MEP rough-ins, and structural anomalies are all captured and delivered as editable CAD files, Revit models, or dimensioned floor plans.
The value isn't the technology. The value is confidence. When your design team opens the DWG and starts drawing, they're working from verified geometry — not assumptions, not field notes scribbled on a legal pad, not a floor plan someone pulled from the DOB that may or may not reflect what was actually built.
Why This Matters More for Small & Mid-Size Firms
For small and mid-size firms especially, this matters more than it does for large practices. You don't have a survey team on staff. You probably can't afford to send two people to a site with a Disto for a full day, and even if you do, you're getting a fraction of the data a LiDAR scan captures in an hour. A single scan visit produces floor plans, elevations, reflected ceiling plans, and 3D models — all from one dataset.
The Math
The math is straightforward. A field measurement session might cost you a day of billable time, produce inconsistent data, and require a return visit when you realize you missed the mechanical room. A LiDAR scan costs a flat fee, takes one visit, and delivers production-ready files within 48 hours. One of those approaches scales. The other one eats your margin.
The Firms That Are Growing Right Now
The firms that are growing right now — the ones winning renovation work and turning projects faster — aren't doing it by working harder in the field. They're doing it by starting every project with spatial data they can trust.
If you're an architect planning a renovation, addition, or adaptive reuse project, the first line item on your scope should be verified as-built documentation. Everything downstream depends on it.
