Multiple projects on one campus

[Anonymous]

I have a relatively large hospital project that has three phases that will happen in quick succession. Would it be better to have 3 different Archicad files or should I just do all the projects out of one file? Either way I'll be using teamwork.

Thanks so much.

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[Link]

If it were me, I'd go with three separate files, then hotlink them together in a fourth file. But it depends on your deliverables and what you need to see in each set.

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

I have not used hotlink modules before but after looking into them more I think that is the route I will go. Thanks, Link.

[Anonymous]

Scott,
Having recently completed a couple of multi building campuses (including hospitals) hot linking files files is really the only way to go.
We had a master campus file that each of the buildings are linked into, and each building consists of several files (shell & core, fit out, and patient room fit out), this way we found it easier to manage teams and teamwork issues whilst also keeping the data that needs to be processed (generating views and schedules, saving etc) to a minimum.

Best of luck,
Scott

[schagemann]

We typically try to avoid direct hotlinks between teamworked ArchiCAD files and instead publish modules - which btw. is also our preference for anything 'modular', i.e. anything that gets repeated more than once is being created in an 'Elements' file then published as .MOD and then hotlinked.

[Link]

schagemann wrote:
We typically try to avoid direct hotlinks between teamworked ArchiCAD files and instead publish modules - which btw. is also our preference for anything 'modular', i.e. anything that gets repeated more than once is being created in an 'Elements' file then published as .MOD and then hotlinked.

Likewise, here's my approach to hotlinking: http://bit.ly/1ogp81q

I presumed that it may be a bit advanced for Scott at this stage, but it really is the best way to go.

Cheers,
Link.

[schagemann]

great videos - pretty much what we do, however i would add the following:

1. we find it dangerous to provide a structure in the story settings as this typically confuses users, as they then tend to add new stories into the provided structure breaking the hotlinks... thus we rely on the view map for organisation only;

2. we keep the individual modules / elements with one edge on the origin to avoid problems with large offsets, labels and to facilitate trace referencing options;

3. to avoid any ambiguity we prefer to name the 'Module File' as Elements;

[Link]

I like your point 2, which could be useful in expansive projects especially if the master file model was positioned far away from project zero. For high rise projects it seemed more important to be able to use trace reference within the Module project. Plus the module would hotlink into the exact location when inserting.

Point 1 was covered by placeholder stories, plus strict instructions in the BIM Manual to only add to the top or bottom any extra overflow (which actually never happened).

Point 3, we always had two projects, one module and one master that were linked together, so it became second nature to the users. Plus the naming convention tied in with the module master layer and module naming conventions, but I see your point of the project being confused with the actual modules.

The core concept has proven to be solid though and the beauty of it is that everyone can add their own personal touches to it!

Cheers,
Link.

[schagemann]

although this is a bit of a sidenote, i reckon for completeness sake we should also mention that the same publishing approach also helps greatly with layouts inflating your file size - in fact we have found it to be the only way to get useable project files on large projects, by splitting them into (a) separate file(s), i.e. create a separate Layout file which only contains PMKs on Layout Sheets... remember the Plotmaker days - what irony?!?