There is no good way to model finishes in Archicad (Advertisement)

BerndSchwarzenbacher — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 13:29:00 GMT

Let’s take a plaster finish. Is there really no built-in modeling workflow to get both

the correct plaster amount during quantity take-offs and
correct visualizations of the plaster at different LODs?

And where’s the option to schedule such finishes by zone? It’s really surprising that there isn’t a room finish schedule included out of the box in the stock Archicad Template.

You end up managing a staggering amount of composite materials

For each single surface finish you have to make a separate composite material. What about walls bordering two rooms with two different coverings? This is a mess! All these variations become dangerous and hard to maintain. And the materials schedule becomes long and confusing. Change the insulation type or thickness in the original wall and now you need to update every single variation.

On top of that you can’t even assign a renovation status to parts of a composite. So partial demolition of composites is not possible. They are really a nightmare in combination with the renovation tool.

Maybe you have been “wanding” flooring slabs for a while

Your foundation floor is already built using slabs. Now you have to layer this thing away and create new slabs as flooring with the wand tool. Fix its thickness, set the elevation, add the proper material and then pick up the settings for the next flooring slab. Just thinking about it makes you sweat. Now your client requests a change in the room layout… so do it all again!
UGH…
Such thin slabs as floor coverings would do the trick for visualizations and scheduling – but creating and maintaining them is just unproductive and horrible. It feels like you are back in AutoCAD making changes everywhere.

You have to choose between room areas with or without coverings

Why can’t Archicad calculate both the area of a room with and without plaster reliably? You could model each covering as an individual wall with the option Reduce Zone Area. But who would want to do that MANUALLY? And what about managing all the openings in the separate wall? Maybe there’s a workflow hidden in Archicad somewhere? Or the Goodies Add-On can provide that? Unfortunately no, it’s not possible with anything that Graphisoft provides.

What if you could model coverings as they are built?

Imagine a workflow to quickly model coverings ready to be used for quantity take-offs. You set up the coverings once and schedule the correct finish area and volume from it. The window and door holes in the wall coverings are subtracted according to your calculation rules. When the client requests a room layout change you easily update all finishes in the room to the new geometry. And the coverings are easily enabled or disabled in visualizations for different LODs.

Envision this together with a workflow to quickly create flooring & ceiling coverings AND update them to changing room geometries with the click of a button.

What if a finish could even have a separate renovation status independent of the base wall? Partial demolition of a wall would be possible after all. Unfortunately that’s not what Archicad provides for you.

But…

Now there is a way to automatically model coverings

You can create wall, floor and ceiling coverings as separate elements for several rooms in one step with the Room Coverings Add-On. Anytime the room layout changes, you just select the updated zone and click one button to update ALL the associated coverings. To get the room area with and without plaster, you set the plaster covering to Reduce Zone Area and obtain both values directly from the built-in zone tool!

Since the covering elements are separate, you can even assign individual renovation statuses to them – independent of the status of the base walls!

Use native Archicad tools that you already know

You set up the wall, floor & ceiling coverings with the native wall and slab tools. Tools which you already know. In the end you have your rooms with coverings modeled as built. Ready for quantity take-off and visualization! You will finally enjoy (or at least not dread) outfitting rooms with finishes and adapt them to your clients changing needs and requirements in no time. Schedules, visualizations and quantity take-offs of finishes CAN be easy and rewarding.

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