cinema hall

[Petros Ioannou]

Problem 1
The cinema hall covers three levels of the building (A, B & C). The seating substructure can be created by using a stair placed on level A which will also be represented on level B but not on level C (“show on all stories” represents the stair on every floor- there are 6 floors in the building). There is a problem in representing theatre seating on all 3 cinema plans. Is there any other way besides drawing it with lines? There are 12 cinemas in the complex….

Problem 2
In stage 2 of this project (hotshell) the drawings of the cinema hall will be further detailed adding its equipment (seating, sound appliances, lighting and sound insulation panels as well). Bearing in mind that all this information would result in a very big file being in the same pln file, what’s the best way to extract every cinema hall to another file maintaining the relation with the main project? Mod is not of much help since it stores one floor only and the cinema hall covers 3 levels…
Also, how is it possible to create a zone of such space and make use of tools such as wall accessories and interior elevations? (For example, using wall framing to create the acoustic panel substructure) Or even how is it possible to create element lists when the side walls cover 3 stories…
Any suggestion would be incredibly helpful…

[Anonymous]

You have a lot of questions here. You might want to consider hiring an outside consultant (i.e. ArchiCAD expert) to help you get the project set up to start with.

Problem 1: The simplest solution is probabaly to put all the seating on level B and show as needed one floor above and below. This way the lower seats could be shown on level A (add the cut line in 2D of course) while all the seats can be shown on levels B & C.

Problem 2: Use teamwork. The only (major) issue with large files is that many people typically have to work on them. I have not seen a project yet (aside from multiple buildings over several city blocks) which was too large to manage in one PLP file. Others may have different experiences, but a twelve theater cinema does not seem overly large. The only way I can see to separate the files is to use hotlinks which does mean managing the stories.

Re: interior elevations: Use the section tool. You may have to hide the actual section markers and use separate symbols to indicate their locations, but this will give you much more control over the extents of the drawings. I haven't much experience with the interior elevation tool since the one time I tried it I couldn't get it to do what I wanted. It appears to be a partly implemented add on rather than a fully mature feature. In any case it works mainly with fairly standard rooms and you will need more control for a theater.

Re: multi-story zones: I've never tried this, let us know if you can get it to work. One poossibility is to put all the stuff you need (seats, panels, equipment, etc.) on level B along with the main theater zone (I assume the control/projection booth is a separate zone) this way everything should work as you wish and the elements can be set to show above or below as needed.

Re: wall accessories: I don't see any problem here unless they just don't do what you want them to.

[Petros Ioannou]

Dear Matthew,
I am afraid that my english led to a misunderstanding..
I was refering to the rows/steps of the cinema and not the furniture on top of them( which can be easy be solved in the way you described.)
I used a stair to represent it, but by placing the stair object appears as an outline projection on the lower level.
Also my question about the side walls and the use of accessories was that if you use walls on each floor then you have to create different wall accessories for every floor. That means that you don't have total control on the full height of the wall. Problems also apear when you want to use SEO's between side walls and the stair used for the floor. I also considered the use of slabs...

[Djordje]

Petros wrote:
I was refering to the rows/steps of the cinema and not the furniture on top of them( which can be easy be solved in the way you described.)
I used a stair to represent it, but by placing the stair object appears as an outline projection on the lower level.
Also my question about the side walls and the use of accessories was that if you use walls on each floor then you have to create different wall accessories for every floor. That means that you don't have total control on the full height of the wall. Problems also apear when you want to use SEO's between side walls and the stair used for the floor. I also considered the use of slabs...

I would work by stories. What is on a storey, should be there. So, divide your cinema vertically into levels A, B, C. Wall is also split to A B, C. Everything is. That way, you can even use MODs (one storey only) for the eventually same layout.

I would not use the stair for the steps, or would use multiple stairs. How they show depends on the parameter setup - I would switch the Storey sensitivity off and do the display manually.

I agree that the wall accessories are a problem in this setup; but then, there is probably some panelling included?

HTH,

[Anonymous]

the best and easiest way to build up a project in AC is that we imagine we are on the site and building a real construction. for example in this project , we don't construct a 3 storey wall at once, so , as you do build it in 3 stages or let me say 3 floors, its better you design it as real , in 3 floors.

[Petros Ioannou]

Thank you for your contribution-I think I’ll work with 3 levels on every hall and see how it goes...
If anything good comes up through the procedure I will send you feedback.