[noob] - 'Template' Rooms for large Hospital.

[Anonymous]

Hello All.

I'm evaluating AC11 at the moment. Just need a few pointers.

Some Background - Large Hospital with 700+ rooms with a large amount of replication of rooms eg. 150+ '1 Bed Rooms' same or similar.

Our current process is typically to draw (within its own DWG file in AutoCad) a 'Room Type' with all the relevant fitout for the client to 'Sign-off' as an agreed project 'Template Room'. A project may have up to 120+ 'Template Rooms'.

Within AutoCad we can re-use some of the information captured using the 'Design Center' in AutoCad, such as listing all the items (blocks) that was agreed to. This at least gives a kick start when designing the room of that type within the actual building fitout (we have learnt to fit out every room towards the end of a project).

Is there a process in AC11 to assist in this type of methodology?

I've been reading up on Zones - Is there a way to show Zones from another file and (say) list the objects within that Zone?

Regards,
Kon.

[Dwight]

Zones might be too abstract for what you are attempting. With Archicad, try to keep it real as much as possible.

In this case you make MODULES of rooms and array instances of them to build up your plan.

The modules would be made on a dedicated layer set or remote storey and hotlinked to the instance placements. When you "Fit out" the module, it will update the rest of them. This does require a lot of discipline to manage but your Autocad experience will guide you.

Exterior walls and floor slabs should not be part of the module... i think.

My experience with this approach is with double-loaded condo layout. The approach comes under stress when it is time to incorporate infrastructure. But your stooges will handle that later, eh? My repetitive modules kept getting more and more varied since telephone
and electrical closets, alternating firewall transitions and all of that columnar stuff that makes up a building detract from solution uniformity.

[Anonymous]

Dwight - I appreciate the response.

I have read into Hotlink Modules (.mod) and from exposure to AutoCAD I can relate to these much like Xrefs - I am wondering if Mods can be treated like blocks in AutoCAD....let me elaborate.

Is it possible to import a Module into a project as 'real' individual objects?

Given a hospital's '1 Bed Room' Template as an example - Currently, we create a collection of items (blocks) into a 'parent' block. For instance the blocks of the Bed, Bed Side Table, Bed Stop, Wall light, Overbed Table, Flower Shelf, Visitor Chair, Hand Basin, etc etc. We exclude Doors, Walls (as they are just lines in Autocad )

Then, when needed, we insert the 'parent' block into the room and 'explode' the nested block. This then exposes the individual block objects of the Bed, Bed Side Table, Bed Stop which we move and place in their exact locations.

...If hospitals didn't have columns and all rooms were exactly the same size then life would be allot easier....

[Anonymous]

Yes modules will work like your parent/child blocks. Only better since the children are 2D, 3D, parametric parts. You don't "explode" the module though. You break the link so that the parts become individually editable.

[Anonymous]

Matthew - great to hear...

The 'end game' which we are trying to achieve is an advanced 'Quality Assurance' comparison for equipment and some fitout like benches.
This would be between the design of the 'Template Room' that the client 'signed off' on and the final design of that room type in the facility.

For example, within the facility, if a different type of handbasin was used in a '1 Bed Room' as compared to the in the '1 Bed Room' Template this should be reported on.

Im theorizing that I can use the ODBC (windows) to compare via queries what is in the a "Template Module" and what is in the facility.

This is the reason I was thinking about Zones at the start as we would have to identify "Space Types" to achieve the comparison.

If anyone has any more insight into more advanced room data comparison and reporting Id apreciate to hear from you !!

Cheers,
Kon.

[Thomas Holm]

Perhaps I'm not the most reliable person to answer this, but I don't think ODBC works anymore within Archicad, even on Windows. But there are several schedule/listing/calculation options that should give you want you want, and 'live' as well, instantly updated as you change anything.

Maybe someone with more knowledge could fill in?

[vfrontiers]

A couple of tips from the trenches...

1. The difficulty lies not in the EXTERIOR walls, but in the common walls between placement of rooms. I would suggest including exterior walls in your unit plans.
Demising walls can be placed in your unit plans, but on a SEPARATE STORY. Then, when creating your building plan, you can only link the main story; leaving out the demising walls. Issues arise when Unit A sits next to Unit B, then sits next to Unit C etc. Then Unit A may also be an exterior unit with a whole different wall type at the exterior.

Note that there are VISIBILITY options that will allow you to see the walls from a different story on the main story.

2. I would suggest inlcuding the ZONES as part of the UNIT plan file. Then when changes are made to this unit type, all the appropriate zones in your building plan will update.

It will also allow you to do SINGLE calculations per unit type. So if you just want to know how many lights are in Unit A, you can do that from the unit plan, using its own zone.

In fact, you can start all your UNIT plans as only zones; place into your building plan; then as you develop the REAL unit plan (walls, etc.) your building will grow.

3. As mentioned previously, any MODULE may have its link broken at any time.

Hope this is useful...

[Anonymous]

Thomas - I was under the impression that ODBC didn't work as well. I got the driver, installed it, went to control panel/admin tools/data sources (ODBC) and pointed the ODBC Driver to 'Chapter 6.pln' (tutorial demo) in which there were a number of Zones (rooms). I also threw in some more objects.

I then created a new Access DB and linked all the tables to the ODBC data....Opened up the the table 'Zones' and it was empty... ... now here is the curios thing.....

...I minimized the database (but left it open) and went to ArchiCAD to explore the "Document / Schedules and Lists" ... after poking around for a while I went back to the DB to look at the field names and VOILA!! the 'ZONES' table was now populated!! WOW now I thought I'm getting somewhere....

...So I created a query between the tables 'Zone', 'Zones_Of_Objects'
and 'Objects' and got a list of all the chairs and other objects.

..... Those reading this, if I sound excited, you are correct.


Duane - thanks for the report from the 'Western Front'!
My background is IT and not architecture (although I can spot on a plan where services are not placed correctly) so I will have to pass your post onto architectural colleagues. I am a little unclear on the terms of a 'Unit (plan)' and 'Demising walls'.

I realise that this post is now verging on the 'Schedules and Data' forum so admins please move if required.

K.

[Thomas Holm]

kondaments wrote:
... WOW now I thought I'm getting somewhere....