Renovation Filter: how to add skins to existing???

[Anonymous]

We're getting into a project where the house is completely gutted (down to the studs) and we need to add interior finish and exterior insulation/sheathing. We've been discussing how to do this and I came across this thread (http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=37046).

I was hoping that in the composite menu, as Laszlo suggests, there would be an option to have certain skins on certain filters. No. So how do I go about adding skins to an existing wall? The help menu (under the title "Adding Insulation to Walls: Renovation Workflow") says to add a new composite wall directly next to the existing wall. It is a simple solution if you are designing a box with no openings. What do I do at windows/doors?

This is an incredibly poor solution for the real world, and it seems that the renovation filter was not completely thought through. We are working on a very large residence and having to add secondary walls on both sides of an existing wall, and dealing with window/door problems, is a painful thought. The trim will never look right.

Has somebody properly addressed how to do this?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Yup, this inability to add skins was a much-blasted non-feature when renovation was introduced.

The Graphisoft workaround shows that their design team is just not thinking as one because not only is it not a reasonable workaround - it also directly conflicts with the new energy modeler in 16:

Adding an entirely new wall for the added skin (e.g., insulation) means putting empty openings in it all over the place to match existing windows/doors ... and of course, the jambs and casing will not work at all.

Further, adding a new wall for the added skins prevents the new energy modeler from working properly! The new modeler (perviously EcoDesigner) only works with a single solid or composite wall. Being zone-based now, the wall is only recognized if a zone surface touches the wall. It is thus impossible to get a proper energy solution with two (or more) parallel composite walls ... which is the Graphisoft solution to renovations involving skin changes.

Very disappointing on both fronts.

Karl

PS On the jamb/casing business: that's sort of the same type of subatomic control we need for proper renovation scheduling, too - just like your skin example. Depending on which side of the wall you're extending via skin changes, you might remove existing trim and add jamb extensions .. and then either replace existing trim, or install new trim. But, library parts are indivisible things with no concept of having only part of them tagged as demo/new... So, I'm not really sure how one is supposed to schedule such things in a true, BIM way.

[Edit: typo]

[Anonymous]

Karl,

Thanks for the reply. I do not understand how this was overlooked. Did the development team even try designing an existing project with the renovation filter?

I do not see a way we can proceed with the project at hand. VERY frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Steven wrote:
Karl,

Thanks for the reply. I do not understand how this was overlooked. Did the development team even try designing an existing project with the renovation filter?

I do not see a way we can proceed with the project at hand. VERY frustrating.

Why not side step this unfinished "feature/frustration" and just have a existing pln with the appropriate placed views on the proposed pln?
We have a fussy planning dept and it works fine for them and the strict Calif energy/green codes.

[Anonymous]

That's what we used to do before the renovation filter. We drafted an "existing conditions.pln", saved a copy for the "demolition.pln", and saved yet another copy for the "proposed.pln"

I thought we were supposed to be moving forward and not back, but since the renovation filter is junk for certain applications like the example I provided, we may have to move back to the old ways until this gets sorted.

Problem is, the large residence we're working on right now is far enough along that dividing it into existing, demo and proposed will take a lot of work. Then again, working with it as-is will to....

[Anonymous]

What we are doing is, in layout, only view "structure" and then the walls do not show the insulation. In the "after renovation" we set the view to see all elements. Of course it is a very poor solution, since it doesn't use ArchiCAD's renovation filters, but only our own system of filters.

But at least we can create a plan of the existing structure without insulation and a plan of the new one with insulation, avoiding the clumsy workaround of adding a second wall altogether.

Furthermore, should ArchiCAD implement the much wanted feature in the future, we will already have a single wall to which we can apply the filters.

The other problem we encountered is that the color coding for existing/demolition/new is not applied with this workaround. But believe me, we'd rather design, in layout view, the new insulation with lines over the one colored (so that we have a final plan with correct color coding) instead of working with two walls and have all details in windows and doors WRONG.

Hope it helped.

Until ArchiCAD stops the yearly development cycle and release something really rethought and not just layers upon layers of features that work poorly together. (sorry, but I had to say it).

And, while ArchiCAD team is at work, please solve all connection with elements a bit more easily. I think it is quite obvious that a wall's bearing structure is connected to the slab one and that the insulation needs to be continuous, and the underfloor stops at a certain point, and the finishing of the floor as well, and that the floor heating is of a certain type. There's so many "standard" details we had to design with the complex profile tool that should be a given.
Ok, rant over. Sorry.

Anyway I hope we helped out with our way of proceeding.

[Anonymous]

Maybe we can play with partial structure display?
To set new insulation as "finish", then filter it as "entire model"and "without finish" ?