How can I create a South African Cape Dutch gable wall?

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I am new to the forum so please bear with me, I will try be as specific as I can be.

I am working with ArchiCAD 18 and what I am trying to create is a Cape Dutch gable wall as in the below image:



But I would like to have a gable window as shown in this image:



As it stands in the first image I have had to create 5 seperate walls and adjusted heights for each with a connect to roof/shell on the slanted walls.(created 2 seperate mono-pitch roofs to connect to and have hidden them)

Now the problem I am having is that as soon as I want to insert a window as per the below image:



it is only created in the inner wall and not the slanted walls which cuts my window on each end. I have browsed Google and forums to try and figure this out but I am afraid I'm stuck.

Is there any way to create a custom gable wall to be trimmed to the desired shape across the top without creating a morph, as with morphs you can't insert a window as you would in a normal wall.

Please if anyone has had a similar challenge and have found a solution please let me know! Thanks for the help in advance.

[Eduardo Rolon]

The trick is to create one wall that has the width and height you need.
Then you create a Morph that you will use to subtract (using SEOs) what you don't need from the profile and that you will place in a "hidden" layer.

Since it is one wall you will not have the window problem.

In the attached screenshot I have the morph layer in hidden line mode.

[Anonymous]

Thank you kindly! Much appreciated. That looks like it will solve my problem. Forgive my ignorance but what is SEO? Im a bit new to morphs in ArchiCAD.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Solid Element Operations.

Look under Design-> Solid Element Operation

And you can use them with most of the tools in AC not only with Morphs.

[Anonymous]

I would go with the SEO solution too, but keep in mind that SEO operations on walls do not appear in floor plans. You have to transform them to morph.
I never could understand the reason that we cannot have walls with adjustable heights

[James B]

As an alternative to SEO, when using Morphs you can use "Merge Elements" from the Connect context menu and Priority Based Connections will become active between the Wall and Morph elements (the Morph will need a Building Material with a higher Intersection Priority)

Another option is to use Shell tool which can create a capping to the Wall - won't need to hide it then. Select both the Wall and Shell and from the Context menu use Connect>Trim Elements to Roof/Shell.

[Anonymous]

James,
I used your advice and even though I got the desired result in 3d and elevation views, it was still wrong in floor plans.
On the left side of the image that I attached, i used a shell to trim the wall,like you suggested but as you can see the floor plan is wrong, on the right side, I did the same thing but I also transformed the wall into a morph and then it showed up as it is supposed to actually look like.Am I missing something out, or is this like SEO?

[James B]

On Floor Plan, unfortunately Walls are not 3D projected - like Morph, Roof, Shell and now slanted Columns. So any trim/seo will not appear to affect a Wall on Floor Plan (same with Slabs).

[Anonymous]

So as I understand, the only way to have walls shown correctly in floor plan is to have them transformed to morph.
And since we have a graphisoft product designer in the thread I am going to go ahead and ask if there are any plans on changing this in the future

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the tips. I see what you mean about using SEO's, but I think this would be better served in another scenario, will definitely keep it in mind.

It turns out that the create shell command and connect seems to be the easiest option and works like a charm! in essence I am able to create complex roof forms/extrusions (without affecting the wall properties) and just connect to shell and hide the actual shell object. Pure simple! This option also doesn't affect window placement so in the case of having to resize or change the wall, it becomes quite quick and easy.

This option also doesn't affect how the walls look in plan.



Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated.

[Erwin Edel]

I find the rooftool quite handy to model the cap stones or whatever the covering that goes on top the wall is called in english. You can use the roofs to cut the wall as well.

Here's an example of an ArchiCAD15 project in wood, same principle.

[Erwin Edel]

Another example with bricks.

The nice thing about single plane roofs is you can use CTRL (or CMD) and click an edge to connect one roof to the other, so all it takes is 2 clicks to create perfect mitred joints.

[Anonymous]

Tat looks great! But how do you get the gable wall to trim at that shape? I see you have it connected to roof/shell obviously, but nowhere could i find a roof that fit that shape other than creating a shell. What roof tool are you using?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Erwin wrote:
Here's an example of an ArchiCAD15 project in wood, same principle.

Beautiful model, Erwin! 🙂

[Erwin Edel]

The shape is made up of single plane roofs. One horizontal and one with same pitch as the roof of the building. I trim the wall using solid element operators.

[Erich]

Here is a similar example to Erwin's made in much the same way. However, since I needed profiled parapet cap stones, I used the crop to single plane roof feature which crops the wall then deletes the roof element used. This make the crop independent of other model elements which can be useful. The cap stones were then made with a complex profile wall - turned to a morph and rotated an needed.