Describing Design Records

Design records present many challenges and may be arranged, described and accessed a number of ways. Although access points are generally determined by the needs of the primary audience (architects, museum curators, facilities, academic researchers, etc.), a few elements tend to form a minimum level of access for design projects: author or creator, project name, client, date, and geographic location.

One method for the arrangement and description of collections of an architect, firm, or institutional body may be the Standard Series for Architecture and Landscape Design Records: A Tool for the Arrangement and Description of Archival Collections by Waverly Lowell and Kelcy Shepherd, who received SAA's C. F. W. Coker Award in 2001, for their development of the standard series tool. The Coker award recognizes innovation in the creation of archival tools that allow for the production of effective finding aids.

The standard series tool, which can be downloaded directly from the Environmental Design Archives at UC-Berkeley, includes information on the following series: Personal Papers, Professional Papers, Faculty Papers, Office Records, Project Records, and Additional Donations. Finding aids created using the Standard Series for Architectural and Landscape Design Records: A Tool for the Arrangement and Description of Archival Collections include:

• Geraldine Knight Scott Collection, 1914-1988
• Guide to the Eero Saarinen Collection
• Inventory of the William W. Wurster/Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons Collection, 1922-1974
• O'Neil Ford: An Inventory of his Drawings, Papers and Photographic Material, 1864-1993

In Architectural Records: Managing Design and Construction Records (SAA, 2006), Waverly Lowell and Tawny Ryan Nelb address the issues that arise when working with design records, including description.

More recently, Descriptive Elements for Born-Digital Records in Architectural Collection, a framework put forth by Aliza Leventhal, Talia Olshefsky, Jessica Quagliaroli, and Laura Schroffel, presents three suggested levels of description for born-digital architectural records. The language and format were taken from the 2017 UC Guidelines for Born-Digital Archival Description and the levels were based on the 2018 Digital Processing Framework (DPF).

The goal of description is to provide information on the content and intellectual arrangement of the material in a specific collection. Encoded Archival Description (EAD) is the standard for encoding finding aids and making collection information available online. See the EAD FAQ on the SAA web site for more information about EAD. Additional resources for describing archival records can be found on the Standards Portal SAA web page.

Additional resources for the arrangement and description of design records include:

Chesarino, C. (2012). An Analysis of Finding Aid Structure and Authority Control for Large Architectural Collections. https://doi.org/10.17615/ag2z-bx21

Cook, M., & Procter, M. (1989). Description of architectural and other plans. A manual of archival description. Aldershot, Hants, England: Gower

Daniels, M. (2000). Arrangement of architectural records. In M. Daniels, & D. Peycere (Eds.), A guide to the archival care of architectural records 19th-20th centuryParis, France: International Council on Archives Architectural Records Section.

Daniels, M. (2000). Description of architectural records. In M. Daniels, & D. Peycere (Eds.), A guide to the archival care of architectural records 19th-20th century. Paris, France: International Council on Archives Architectural Records Section.

Gawne, E. (2003). Cataloguing architectural drawings. Journal of the Society of Archivists, 24 (2).

Hamburger, S. (2004). Architectural records: Arrangement, description, and preservation. Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference.

Lowell, W. B. & Nelb, T. (2006). Architectural records: Managing design and construction records. Chicago, IL: Society of American Archivists.

Porter, V., & Thornes, R. (1994). A guide to the description of architectural drawings. New York: G.K. Hall.

Shepherd, K., & Lowell, W. B. (2010). Standard series for architecture and landscape design records: A tool for the arrangement and description of archival collections. Berkeley, Calif.: Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.