Architectural Detailing - Edward Allen, Patrick Rand
Creating details that call for the precise fitment of materials leads to much higher construction costs, slower work and ultimately, unrealized design aspirations. Every material has it's own tolerance margin. These Margins differ based on the size and nature of the materials. These tolerance margins need to be accounted for in the detailing of how the materials come together. The easiest and most cost effective approach to avoid custom fitting materials to perfectly match the adjacent materials is to leave a gap between them. This gap width can vary as necessary, as long as we overlap it with another trim element. The most basic example of this would be a piece of shoe moulding covering the gap between the base trim on a wall and the hardwood on the floor.