Overlapping Zones, Interior Elevations, Gross Areas, Fills in Schedules

[4hotshoes]

It's complicated.
At first we have Zones for Gross area and Rooms, which works fine for the Gross Area Schedule are the Zones are on different layers.

BUT, placing Interior Elevations to read Zones is a problem when half the rooms say "First Floor Gross Area" is an annoying problem because the Zones overlap. The results are not consistent.

THEN I thought to use Fills for the Gross floor areas and and rebuild a schedule to place on a plan using Fill areas. It works but is a little quirky and not that intuitive for others to use. Screen shots provided for the Schedule. I am using the Fill Element ID for the Space Name. I created a Custom Text for the Space Type (Conditioned or Unconditioned).

I can personally deal with this solution because I know the work around, but for a novice user in the office, it will be baffling to make the Schedule work. Then they will avoid using it if it won't work for them.

What are some other options? I could create the schedule manually and us fills. But the overlapping Zones with Interior Elevations are the most annoying problem.

[Miha_M]

Never use overlapping zones. That is a long time problem which is as old as archicad zones. Good choice for using fills instead, it does work well as fills can be id'd and scheduled.
For novice users I'd advise a good template and the use of pre-set favorites.
Also pre-set schedules would work that way.

[Marc H]

I’ve been using ‘overlapping zones’ for a long time; placing different types on different layers. I have not worked with the IE zone detection feature before, but this post brought it to my attention. Nice feature. Sure enough, I experienced the same problem mentioned above (variable and inconsistent zone associations) when using the detection feature. But I like using the zone tool and zone type arrangement for my planning work!

In any case, I explored flattening my gross and other non-room planning type zones to 1” high and ‘embedded’ them into the floor slab (-1” offset) to avoid the overlap with the room zone, which of course needs the full height / volume. I ran some tests and the IE zone detection worked consistently.

I could see some added work effort for stepped floor levels, but you may want to consider exploring this option.