Acronyms and Jargon

AHJ: department of buildings? Fire department? Electrical inspector? Depending on the location and the topic, some group of people has final say.
MEP: “we need an MEP engineer” “all the MEP under the decking is in the way of the projector”
OAC call: these can be weekly or bi-weekly calls during production
OFE ¹ ² ³ - usually used when there is a piece of equipment not in our scope that connects to our system - for example an OFE cable modem means someone else provides it.
TCO
DOB

Procore, Newforma and others - cloud based services used by a construction manager to organize RFI’s and submittals.
CDs are the drawings an architect creates for the construction team to bid on and furnish a project.
COO when the building is turned over. All inspections have been passed.
Gantt Chart reference - Schedule diagram that is very typical in construction
RCP: imagine you’re standing in a space, put a mirror on the floor and look at the ceiling in the mirror. If you drew what you see in the mirror⁴⁵, that would be an RCP.
Shop drawing - a company who is fabricating something that will install on site will submit a shop drawing
Submittal - when you formally submit your drawings to the construction team
RFI: During construction this is a formal request from one party to another for more information. Usually you include a drawing and a call out visually showing where your confusion lies.

Back Box: typically a 4” x 4” electrical box behind a piece of equipment that is mounted in front.
Horseshoe shim or U shim: You will find these littered around every construction site. They are used to shim things, usually stradling a fastener (hence their U shape). They come in different thicknesses usually indicated by color. They save the day when it comes to leveling LED walls, brackets, mounts, etc.
IDF - A server closet. Typically there is at least one per floor. Typically they have conduit run to the MDF. Often we will try to squeeze an AV equipment rack into one.
Level 5 wall finish - we typically call this out if we are projecting directly onto a wall. Level 5 is the highest quality surface of drywall - smooth, no tape marks, perfectly flat.
MDF - This is the main server room for the building. Typically there is one per building. We usually scare the IT crowd when we put strange AV equipment in an MDF, but eventually they come around.
Ring and string - no cable in the conduit yet, electricians run pull string for now and tie a ring on the string so it doesn’t get pulled back through the conduit
Strut Trapeze - a hanger for mechanical things (the starting point of a projector hang for us)
Topping slab - top finished coat of concrete over structural concrete - what people will walk on

AFF - A measurement taken from above the finished floor. “The LED wall starts 8” AFF”
FFE - Finished Floor Elevation - height of the floor to either sea level, or another predetermined point - sometimes a basement or parking garage floor.
OC - On Center - “those studs are 16” OC”
TOS - top of slab - vertical measurement to the top of a floor slab - often seen in elevation drawings.

Day 1 / Day 2 - Occasionally a part of our design will get punted to after the rest of the project is complete. “That IPTV box is a day 2 item”
Dust free date - something we ask for, but do we ever really get it? :/

Creative Technology Almanac