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Follows the Standard
aec profile
Level 1

Does the kitchen shaft still work?

An owner-architect-contractor meeting. A prospective restaurant tenant intends to install a solid-fuel smoker, and the question is whether the existing kitchen shaft can carry the additional exhaust.

Ended:Parked

Progress is blocked by a dependency outside the session. A Parked task MUST name the blocker and the party responsible for clearing it.

Owner's representative
Coordination.Coordination
MEP engineer
Ready.acknowledge
Architect
Heard — one moment.heard
(the architect finishes the sentence she was mid-way through)
Architect
Ready.acknowledge
Owner's representative
The restaurant tenant is adding a solid-fuel smoker. Does our kitchen shaft still work?
MEP engineer
Heard — check whether a dedicated solid-fuel exhaust fits the existing chase alongside the hood exhaust and the kitchen supply and return. MEP, on it.claim
MEP engineer
Prompting now: compare a dedicated solid-fuel exhaust route against the current shaft using the duct layout on the kitchen level, and flag where it would have to dogleg.prompting
Contractor
Adder.adder
MEP engineer
Go ahead.go_ahead
Contractor
The smoker is a twelve by twelve unit with its own flue.
Architect
Adder.adder
MEP engineer
Go ahead.go_ahead
Architect
And the ceiling below the kitchen is already tight.
MEP engineer
Finished. Running.finished
(the meeting continues through other agenda items)
MEP engineer
Back with it. Preliminary: the shaft works if the smoker sits to the right of the supply duct. Anywhere to the left and the chase has to widen. This needs my review against the equipment cut sheet before anyone builds to it.preliminary
MEP engineer
Parked — waiting on the tenant's smoker model and its listing. Owner's representative owns getting that from the tenant.parked

The task did not end Accepted, because the input needed to answer it does not exist yet. It ended Parked with a named blocker and a named responsible party — the difference between a tracked open item and one that quietly evaporates. Most rooms would have ended this exchange with "we'll look into the smoker", which names nobody. Note also the architect's two-step acknowledgement: she was mid-sentence, said so, and the caller waited. Without "Heard" her only options were to claim a readiness she did not have or to stay silent and be read as inattentive.

Real situation, reconstructed dialogue. The question, the constraints, and the outcome are taken from a recorded owner-architect-contractor meeting — the smoker is a twelve-by-twelve unit with its own flue, the shaft may need upsizing, the answer turns on whether the smoker sits right of the duct, and the cut sheet was still owed when the meeting ended. The protocol did not exist during that meeting, so no cue below was actually uttered. The dialogue shows how that exchange would sound under the Standard.

Written against Standard v0.6. This example is published as data — read the source or contribute one of your own.