/ Resources · For architects
Pre-coordination for architects.
Cable pathways, panel locations, acoustic treatment and life-safety zoning — what to coordinate at design stage so the systems integrate cleanly with the building.
- Audience
- For architects
- Planning items
- 6
- Common mistakes
- 5
- Last reviewed
- 2026-05-17
Overview
An architect's design stage is the most leveraged stage of any systems-integration project. The decisions made on pathways, panel rooms, acoustic treatment and life-safety zoning at design lock in or out the next twenty years of operational behaviour. Once construction starts, every change is a refurbishment cost. Pre-coordination at design — what we call ELV+AV co-ordination — is where the engineering pack and the architectural drawings agree before plaster.
We publish this resource for architects who want to pre-empt the typical coordination breakdowns: undersized pathways, panel rooms with the wrong adjacencies, acoustic treatment specified too late, life-safety zoning that doesn't match the egress logic. Each is solvable at design and expensive after.
/ Coordination points
Who to agree what with
| Counterpart | What to agree |
|---|---|
| Structural | cable tray routing, equipment loads, slab penetrations |
| MEP | power requirements, HVAC for racks, drainage for chillers |
| Interiors | keypad placement, speaker concealment, light fitting layouts |
| Acoustic | treatment specification, ceiling cloud locations |
| Life-safety | egress zoning, AHJ alignment |
/ Common mistakes
What to avoid
Engineering portal
Related engineering topics
Engineering topic
Acoustics
RT60, STI, EASE modelling, treatment specification — the engineering that distinguishes a working room from a loud one.
Engineering topic
Fire safety
NBC 2016, IS 2189, EN 54, the cause-and-effect matrix that ties fire, PA, BMS, lifts and access control into one event.
Engineering topic
Infrastructure
The building's permanent skeleton — sized for 20 years, not for this year's device.
Engineering topic
Networking
Cat6A backbone, PoE++ access layer, AV/IT segmentation, Wi-Fi density engineering — the network that everything else rides on.
Engineering topic
AV-over-IP
SDVoE, Dante AV, NDI — AV traffic on IP backbones that respect latency, jitter, multicast and PTP discipline.
Methodology
Methodology principles this resource builds on
design
Design for handover, not for installation
Every design decision is judged by how it lands with the FM team on day one of operations — not by how easily it installs.
design
Infrastructure first, devices second
Power, pathways and cabling outlive every device that plugs into them. Specify infrastructure for the building's lifetime, not the current device.
interoperability
Interoperability is a constraint, not a feature
Vendor-lock saves money in year one and costs five times that amount in year seven. Open standards are the starting point.
Interoperability
Interoperability matrices relevant to this resource
Interoperability
Acoustics + architecture — the room is the system
RT60 is set by surface area, absorption coefficients and room volume — not by adding more speakers later.
Interoperability
Fire alarm + PA voice evacuation — the cause-and-effect spine
Fire-alarm panels trigger zoned PA voice messages via a cause-and-effect matrix; both are governed by NBC 2016 + IS 2189, with EN 54-16 as the voice-alarm equipment benchmark.
Interoperability
CCTV + PoE switching + storage — the IP surveillance triad
IP cameras need PoE switches sized for both power and bandwidth, and storage sized for retention × bitrate × camera-count.
Entity graph
Related engineering entities
infrastructure system
Cat6A Structured Cabling
Augmented Category 6 structured cabling — 10 Gbps over the full 100 m channel, rated for 25 years of service. The default for any new commercial or premium-residential cabling layer.
protocol
Power over Ethernet (IEEE 802.3)
IEEE-standard delivery of low-voltage DC power over the same Cat-class cable as data. PoE+ delivers up to 30 W; PoE++ Type 3/4 up to 90 W — sufficient for IP cameras, APs, VOIP phones and small displays.
Engineering toolkit
Tools that support this work
configurator
Architect Brief Builder
For architects, consultants and project teams — assemble a plain-language coordination brief. A draft input, not a statutory submission.
configurator
Drawing & BOQ Readiness Checker
Check whether your drawings, schedules, BOQ/spec status, site access and project team are ready for a systems conversation. Advisory; no pricing, quantities or final scope.
calculator
RT60 Acoustic Calculator
Room dimensions and finish materials in, indicative reverberation time and recommended absorber area out. Sabine equation; defensible for early-stage acoustic planning.
calculator
Network & PoE Calculator
Sized to year-three load — switches, Wi-Fi 7 access points, PoE budget (watts), Cat6A run count, port/AP sizing. Cisco / HPE Aruba / Juniper-class enterprise gear.
Resource library
Other resources in this library
For consultants
Specification + BOQ guidance for consultants
Vendor-neutral specifications, BOQ structure, design-review checklists and protocol selection guidance for MEP/ELV/AV consultants.
For facility managers
Operations + AMC guidance for facility managers
Preventive calendars, runbooks, lifecycle planning, incident response and AMC scoping — for the FM team that inherits the building.
For consultants
Specification support
Vendor-neutral specification templates, engineering-pack structures and protocol selection notes — assembled from the practice's working documents.
For consultants
BOQ guidance
BOQ structure, line-item rationale, scope clarification and bid-comparison guidance — for fair, defensible procurement.
For facility managers
AMC planning
How to scope, structure and renew an AMC — preventive calendar, response targets, lifecycle hooks and renewal metrics.
For facility managers
Maintenance checklists
Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual checklists derived from the practice's preventive calendars across BMS, fire, PA, CCTV, UPS, BESS and AV.
· For architects · Last reviewed 2026-05-17