Pierre,
Sounds like a big challenge, opportunity, and risk all rolled into one.
On the one hand, it might be an opportunity to introduce metric measures
and find ways to show how practical they can be. On the other hand, if
the people involved in the construction have never worked in SI units
and all the supplies are sized in feet and inches, then going metric
will potentially make the job way more complicated and thus risk
alienating a lot of people who may find that going metric increases
time, effort and cost.
A few years ago when I first switched to doing engineering in metric, I
didn't know what I was doing. For example, I did my first drawing in
centimeters. I realized I needed help. So I studied some hard-metric
drawings by some experienced engineers. You can't imagine how much this
helped. Now I'm very comfortable designing in hard-metric and strongly
prefer it over designing in traditional measures. Nonetheless, I will
still occasionally design a part in inches if for practical reasons I
can't justify going metric. I would guess that 90% of my work now is
hard-metric, and 10% is in traditional units.
If you're looking for advice as to how to pull off this project working
in metric units, then my advice is:
- Try very hard to always work off of quality examples from someone
who knows what he is doing
- Consider carefully what parts of the project make sense in
hard-metric and what parts don't.
- Spend a lot of time studying what tools and materials are available
in hard-metric sizes, being very careful to try to maintain comparable
cost and quality to the equivalent non-metric supplies.
By the way, I'm not sure what your pastor means by "design." You mean
do the complete design, including all the detailed drawings and bills of
materials? Or do you mean to sketch out roughly what you want to hand
off to an engineering firm?
Good luck,
J.
Pierre Abbat wrote:
The pastor asked me to design a building for the church's new lot. I brought
my measuring tape and measured chairs and pews and figured 500 mm wide per
person (not counting Bibles laid beside them), 900 mm between pews, and
started drawing on the computer, but I really don't know architecture. If you
can help me, please contact me off list.
Pierre
