Hello, interested researcher(s);

I play role-playing games, similar to Dungeons & Dragons.  If you
don't know what an RPG is, saying it is a kind of strange board game
with counters and paper maps will do good enough for this question.

The game I play is all about comic book superheroes.  I need maps of
buildings for them to fight superbattles in.  My problem has been
getting the COMPLETE set of floors (upper AND whatever basement
floors) for any building.  Most sources (library books and Google
searches) that I use don't often include ALL areas (which is
understandable for security reasons).

In short, my question is WHERE can I get complete floorplans of old
buildings (creepy film noir places would be ideal).  To allay anyone's
fears, I'm not 'casing' anything.  In fact, I would prefer buildings
that don't exist anymore or never existed in the first place.

I'm willing to pay a small amount for such plans.  I'm not really
interested in literal blueprints, just the basic layout of the rooms
should do me (think the family home plan magazines).  Scale and
quality are unimportant as I will redraw the map on a dry-erase board
anyway.  It would be great if there was an available catalog (IRL or
online) for browsing.

Is there ONE or a small number of sources where I could ask for plans
of, say, an art deco hotel, or a modern parking garage?  I had always
thought that architectural firms might have some but never knew if
they might sell them and at what price.  I also understand that some
City Halls might have them on file but too many questions might be
suspect for all the wrong reasons.

Any help you could give me would be much appreciated.  My superheros
are waiting to fight evil...

Peace :-)

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 11 Feb 2005 10:30 PST

Take a look here:


http://images.google.com/images?q=floor+plans&svnum=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-33,GGLD:en&imgsz=xxlarge


and see if any of these meet your needs.

Let me know.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by kookalouris-ga on 14 Feb 2005 23:34 PST

pafalafa-ga

My apologies for not being able to respond more quickly.

However, thank you for your prompt reply.  Having read your
highly-rated feedback profile, I feel I'm in good hands. :-)

I'm impressed by the amount of good material you were able to pull in
with ONE search.  I've been searching with Google for awhile and
haven't yet developed such skill with the system.

In terms of quality and scale, the worst of these plans is more than I
need.  My problem is needing the full building.

On page 6 of the search your provided, there is a particularly good
example of what I am looking for.  It has all of the floors (as far as
I can tell).

http://www.bu.edu/orpm/580commave/floor-plans.html

Here is the best I have been able to find in ALL my Google searches.

http://www.lennoxhouse.com/inn4sale/Outline.html

This page leads to the COMPLETE (every floor and the lot) plans of
this inn (and probably only because the owners are desparate to sell).

What I was hoping for was the ability to actually request some kind of
plans, almost like choosing from a catalog.

Here's a good idea of what I'm thinking about.

Pretend I'm a movie producer and I need plans to a multi-story office
building that has an underground parking garage, a bank and a swimming
pool.  Plans this detailed would be almost impossible to find with a
Google search (the bank wouldn't like it's interior mapped, a building
with multiple tenants would also be as tough).

Where could you (or anyone) get such detailed plans on order?  How
much could be obtained?  How much might it cost?  Is such a thing even
possible?

It may be possible.
It may be possible, but too expensive.
It may be practically impossible.

Even knowing it would be impossible would be answering my question.

Let me know what you think and thanks again!

Gerry

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 15 Feb 2005 04:48 PST

While I'm giving this matter some more thought, you might want to
checn into these two books (both available at amazon.com):


Building Type Basics for Office Buildings (Building Type Basics Series)
by A. Eugene Kohn 

[this includes a fair number of floor plans in it, but I don't know if
they're as comprehenesive -- garage to roof deck! -- as you need]



The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture
{haven't actually seen the insides of this one, but the book's blurb
is as follows]:
...so massive that it comes in its own plastic carrying case--is one
of the rare publishing events that lives up to its hype. The book
showcases 1,052 buildings completed since January 1998 with thousands
of well-chosen color photographs, plans, elevations, and
cross-sections.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 15 Feb 2005 05:07 PST

You might want to have a look at these, as well:


http://kiapeng.mirnet.com.my/htmls/resources2.htm

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Clarification of Question by kookalouris-ga on 20 Feb 2005 23:32 PST

pafalafa,

Again my apologies for the long delay in replying.  Thank you for the information.

I am impressed by the Amazon reviews but can't justify such an expense
without actually flipping through the books (in fact, I don't know if
I could justify such an expense :-) )

Thanks for the condo plans, they will be helpful.

I think you've got the idea of what I need.  Whatever information you
can dig up will be appreciated.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Gerry