Glulam Building: Start to Finish – Part Four A

Welcome to our “Glulam Building: Start to Finish” series. Our goal is to provide an overview – from idea to completion – of a glulam building, from the perspective of a glulam manufacturer and designer.


Part 4A: Who are shop drawings for?


Before digging into the details of what information appears on different types of shop drawings, it’s important to take a step back and think about the different parties that will makes use of the drawings. Different information is important to each of them, so it’s important to keep all of them in mind while creating these drawings.

Verifying truss assembly in our shop

Unalam Shop: Ultimately the shop is the most important user of our shop drawings. They need to be able to fabricate every steel and glulam part needed in the finished building using the information that appears on these drawings.




















Unalam Project Manager: Our Project Manager will need to use the shop drawings to order hardware and other items we don’t produce ourselves.

Shop drawings are a constant reference when assembling a complex structure

Installer: The shop drawings need to clearly show where each part we produce goes in the finished building, and what hardware to use when connecting them.

Coordination of anchor bolts, base shoe, glulam fabrication and steel curtain wall

Contractor: At some point, our material will almost always connect to another trade – as simple as anchor bolts, or as complicated as a shared glulam to structural steel connection. The contractor needs information to share with other trades for coordination.

Design Team: We will submit out drawings to the Architect and Engineer of Record for review and approval. The drawings should clearly provide overall geometry information for a basic conformance check, as well as enough detail on members and connections for reviewing any additional items.


It is a lot to keep track of, and there is a lot of information to represent. In the coming weeks we will describe some of the overall shop drawing types we use for a typical project.