Good AV design drawings do three jobs at once: they tell the contractor exactly what to install and where, they let the wider design team check for clashes before anything is built, and they carry through into a tender pack that contractors can price accurately. If an AV partner can only offer a written spec or a rough sketch, they are not giving you enough to coordinate against or to build from. This post sets out what CAD and BIM output for AV should actually contain, and what to ask before you appoint someone to produce it.
What CAD output for AV should actually include
“AV drawings” gets used loosely. In practice, a competent AV design partner should be producing a defined set of documents, not a single diagram with some boxes on it. At minimum, that set should cover:
Room layouts. Plan views showing screen or display positions, camera and microphone placement, speaker locations, control panels, and any lectern or table-based connectivity points, drawn to scale against the actual room dimensions rather than a generic template.
Containment and first-fix routes. Cable routes from source to destination — first fix positions for conduit, tray, floor boxes and back boxes — issued early enough that the electrical and building services contractors can coordinate their own containment runs around them, not after walls are closed up.
Rack elevations. A drawn-to-scale layout of what sits in the AV rack or credenza, in what order, with rack unit heights, ventilation and cable management accounted for, so the space required is known before the joinery or comms room is finalised.
Equipment schedules. A room-by-room or line-item list of every piece of hardware, tied to the drawings by reference number, that a contractor can price against and an installer can check off during commissioning.
If any of these are missing, the drawings are not ready for tender or for construction — they are a concept, not a deliverable.
What “BIM-aligned” actually means for AV
BIM-aligned does not mean the AV designer owns the model. It means AV design elements — screens, cameras, rack enclosures, containment — are modelled or coordinated within the shared project model rather than added afterwards as an afterthought. In practice that means working in native CAD or BIM software that can exchange files with the architect’s and M&E consultant’s platforms, using consistent levels, grids and reference points, and being available to sit inside the same clash detection process as every other building services discipline.
Clash detection matters here in a very concrete way. AV containment competes for the same ceiling void, riser and wall cavity space as electrical, mechanical and data containment. Rack enclosures need floor space, ventilation clearance and power that has to be planned alongside everything else going into a comms room. If AV isn’t part of that coordination pass, clashes get found on site instead of on screen — which is a far more expensive place to find them.
Why drawings produced in isolation cause problems later
The most common failure mode is straightforward: an AV supplier is brought in after the architectural and M&E design is largely fixed, and produces AV drawings with no reference to what else is happening in that space. The results tend to follow a predictable pattern:
Containment routes clash with electrical or mechanical runs already fixed in the design, forcing rework or compromises that weaken the AV installation. Rooms get sized without anyone accounting for screen depth, rack footprint or the clearance needed around a video wall, so equipment that looked fine on paper doesn’t actually fit. Power and data provision gets specified generically rather than matched to what the AV equipment actually needs, leaving contractors to work out on site what should have been settled at design stage. None of this is because anyone did a bad job in isolation — it happens because AV was treated as an add-on rather than as a coordinated discipline from the start.
This is the core argument for bringing AV design in early rather than late — a point covered in more detail in our guide to specifying AV at the right RIBA stages, and in how we work as an AV design partner on our architects sector page.
What to ask a prospective AV design partner
Before appointing anyone to produce AV design drawings for a project with an architect, M&E consultant or main contractor involved, it’s worth confirming three things directly:
Do they produce native CAD or BIM output? Ask what software they design in and what file formats they can hand over. A PDF export of a drawing is not the same as a native file your design team can actually coordinate against.
Do they coordinate directly with the design team? Find out whether they will exchange files and revisions with your architect and M&E consultant as the design develops, or whether they expect to be handed a finished layout and work around it.
Will they attend design team meetings? An AV designer who turns up to coordination meetings can flag containment and space issues while they’re still cheap to fix. One who only communicates by email tends to surface problems later, when they’re expensive.
If the answer to any of these is vague, that’s a reasonable signal the drawings you’ll get won’t be ready to tender or build from without extra work on your side.
FAQ
What’s the difference between an AV layout drawing and a full AV design pack?
A layout drawing shows where equipment sits in a room. A full design pack adds containment and first-fix routes, rack elevations and an equipment schedule tied to the drawings — the set of documents a contractor actually needs to price and build from.
Does the AV designer need to use the same software as our architect?
Not necessarily the same software, but it needs to be able to exchange files in formats your architect and M&E consultant can bring into the shared model, so AV elements can be checked for clashes alongside everything else.
At what stage should AV drawings be produced?
As early as possible, ideally alongside the architectural and M&E design rather than after it’s fixed. Late AV drawings tend to be working around decisions that have already closed off options — see our guide to writing an AV tender brief for how to set a project up properly from the outset.
Efficient IS produces CAD and BIM-aligned AV drawings as part of our Design Consultation & Tender Management service, working alongside architects, M&E consultants and contractors from brief through to tender pack. If you’re planning a project and want to talk through what your AV drawings should include, get in touch.
