Modular Timber Architecture - Special Timber Structural Wall Profiles

[Anonymous]

I have been trying to find ways in which Archicad, without cheating, can create walls, roofs and slabs following repeating patterns of modular design... I have looked into curtain walls and have not found any way to do so...

My case study for this is the "Vila Taguaí" design by Cristina Xavier and Helio Olga... but I have a few more such designs in mind when it comes to Timber Architecture, when we have repeating modules of pannels that would be an extruded profile of two or three wood types, but would not form a simple "Wall" that is an extruded solid with a fixed composite profile, but rather, a unique "curtain" of timber elements set in a specific way.

I am adding a photo of the actual real wood profile for the walls of the timber construction. I have visited the site ( kindly with support by the Architect ) and I would like to model them as Case Studies in Archicad... and I simply cannot find a way to have Archicad model the walls as such...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mg0nioirc22eiok/_MG_9162.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wzajjpvn62pnan/_MG_9160.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/41iyazwx4un6lps/_MG_9190-HDR.jpg

Thank you in advance,

Jessica

[Lingwisyer]

What counts as cheating?

There is a addon that you could use to make the sections of timber that extrude from the main face. You'd have to apply it to a solid wall, but it will allow you to insert doors and windows as normal. The downside is that the addon is all in German (I think)... It is called "Wand_Paneelfugen und Trapezblech für Zubehör-Addon". You might be able to correct the "solid wall" in 2D by using a Composite with a custom hatch creating the internal hollows.

I guess what would count as cheating is using a Custom Profile post on a railing with the Segmentation set to your unit distance. Your doors and windows would need to be inserted into a separate wall and a SOE would need to be applied to the "Railing" to create the Wall Hole but you'll get full detail in 3D. 2D on the other hand will not work out due to how railing posts are represented by default, though if you really want to, you could do a completely custom post rather than using the Profiler in which case you can create the correct 2D as well.


Ling.

[Anonymous]

First of all, thank you so much for your reply.

I guess what I meant is not resorting to things such as custom hatches to emulate holes, because the main advantage of BIM over say, Rhinocerous, would be to have it understand what materials are being used where, and even go as far as to help me use the material constraints of the system I am using, as well as go as far as help me quantify. For example, this wood panel is used in an 80cm x 250cm module. But in Brazil we have structural brick systems, that come in 19 x 19 x 39cm ( rendering a module size of 20x20x40cm with cement ), it would be good if Archicad was aware of the material qualities of what is being built, beyond seeing it as a prismatic object with a proper texture. It cannot just make any curves. It cannot have a wall size that doesn't adhere to multiples of the brick size, because it is a hollow structural brick, so, it's not interesting to break the bricks, so when using that construction technique, those geometric design constraints would be forced upon drawing. Of course I can do a bit of math before using the wall, but it would be useful to have the software work within the constrains of the building method, and I was trying to find where in Archicad this is configured or a new wall type that has this is configured. And not finding it.

On the case of the timber wall profile, or any other modular system made of fixed sized panels that join in a certain way, and demand a certain solid profile that is not as simple as a composite wall made of parallel layers of material, but that Archicad keeps tabs on the structure of the pannel itself, and not simply a specific texture or hatch, but understand "This pannel has this profile in section cut, repeated in modules of this, rotating only in these angles" and that could be programmed.

And of course, in may cases this isn't really important. But when it is, I was wondering if I should be using a curtain wall, which can be abstracted to having wood mullions and wood panels, having a front and back panel of thinner wood and the correct interval between mullions, and so, both in 3D view and in section cut, I would have Archicad model the solid objects automatically for me, and also, give me proper 2D documentation. As if the curtain wall could be use for "Special case walls" that follow a material pattern when being composed, and we could introduce those rules, or create families of such modules.

THank you for your feedback, I'm gonna look into the german timber extension, I have been playing with another one, but it is incredibly centered on traditional timber frame structures, and I'm not yet experienced in it to be able to push its limits.

[Anonymous]

Also I was thinking Archicad must have somewhere a way to tie the walls to quantification. So I can have a spreadsheet that tells me how much material is actually needed to build my project, item by item, broken by family, and then I can export to Excel and work around cost. I know it does so for windows and doors and the like, so it obviously does the same for walls and roofs, even if I haven't found out where exactly, and as such, it must have a place to give it the data to process that quantification, and this is connected of course, to construction methods and how each wall type is assembled.

I guess my mistake is assuming the software must have functions it might not have. If so I am sorry, I am actually probing the limits of Archicad to decide upon adopting it in a small practice integrated with Rhino. Have done the tutorials and am starting to model a few well known small houses and trying to figure out its limits.

Again, thank you for your reply, I am thankful for your help to a newbie

In some way, I am coming from Rhino, where if I were to construct this, I would actually model a block that is the wall module, and repeat it, so that on render or 2D documents, a floorplan ( which is a section at a set height from a user on TOP view at Parallel projection ) would give me the solid components outlined. I would be able to see it is made of a discrete shape of mullion, that holds two smaller panels of wood, and not a wood solid with empty volumes inside and bumps on the outside, if you know what I mean.

[Erwin Edel]

You can draw the wall with wood - air-cavity - wood composite and add complex profile collumns on a grid. Make sure the buildingmaterial of this has higher priority than the wood and air-cavity.

If you do a quantity take off for the wood, the quanitity would be correct, because the collumn will break up the wall.

That said, it is a lot of individual modelling with those collumns.

I would stick to the 'dumb' texture and do my cost estimate with x amount of profiles per m1. Billable hours and all.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Erwin. This is a small house ( all 7 houses on site are about from 100 to 140m2 each ) as a case study, so it shouldn't become heavy. At least in Rhino or Revit, my computer wouldn't even start breaking a sweat with something of this size, so I don't think it should be a concern.

Thank you so much for your help

[Lingwisyer]

@Erwin, do you know if materials used in Railings are included in material quantities? Do railings follow Material Priorities? If so, you could save your Custom Profile column as a Custom Post then use the railing post to array your column along your wall. You'd need to SOE out the openings, but it would mean you're not playing around with a hundred individual columns. Are SOEs excluded?


Ling.

[Erwin Edel]

Sorry, still happily working on ArchiCAD20 with running projects. Crisis is over and done around here and I haven't had the time to bring our office template in to ArchiCAD21 yet, due to workload on running projects. (Or fix the Work Environment to my liking even).

I was looking forward to abusing the railing tool for all kinds of 'that's not a railing' things, but it will have to wait for a while.

I'm also quite happy with ArchiCAD20, a very solid release, so I don't mind not having switched over yet.