Best way to create a housing scheme?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've just migrated to Archicad from AutoCAD Architecture which was a messy and frustrating program...very pleased with Archicad so far.

I'm basically working on a student project consisting of 6 semidetached houses and 3 detached family houses, the site plan and layout is important.

Since each of the 6 or 3 sets of houses are identical copies, what is the best way to create 'master' buildings which when updated will also change the other buildings in their layout on the site plan? Can I do this within one project file?

Thanks for your help.

[Dwight]

Depending on the degree of editability required:

1: No editing: Save each as an 'object'.

2: Editing: save as several 'modules'. This requires some experimenting and study. See Archicad help for module instructions.

[Anonymous]

I need to be able to edit the master houses once they're in the site plan so i guess the second option.

So far i've created a project for the site plan, and then a separate project for each of the individual master buildings. Then i've used file>external content>place hotlinked module to put each of the buildings onto the site plan project.

Is this likely to get messy or is this what you were suggesting?
Is there any difference between importing the master house into the site plan project as a pose to 'saving as a module' ?

Thanks very much

[Anonymous]

One big problem that take some time to master when doing the second option (hotlink) is that if you have other storysettings in your sitefile, or that your buildings are on different levels.

If I want to work this way, I normally setup all objects to only shows at "Home story only" and "Symbolic cut", than you should have the ability to place your buildings on different levels without to much tweaking.

[Thomas Holm]

MUCH easier to save each house type as an object, and then place them, rotated, elevated or whatever you want in the site pln.
Only thing you have to remember is to do an additional Save As Object when you've edited a house. If you simply overwrite the old object with the same name, the site pln will update automatically when it reloads its libraries when opened.
Additional bonus is that you can use a customised layer combo when saving as object, where you've stripped out everything (like interiors) that isn't relevant for the site plan. Thus speed up renderings etc.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all