project with multiple buildings on many levels (ArchiCAD16)

[Anonymous]

I need to create a site model with about 10 buildings in it. Buildings have different levels and story heights so ideally would be to model them separately and combine them in one big mastermodel at the end (similar to AutoCAD x-ref). Any idea how to do it and keep all editable (saving as objects is not the solution I am looking for)?

[Anonymous]

Save every of 10 buildings as Module (.mod) file. Then import that modules into a master file.

[Anonymous]

This is not really viable solution. As a workaround it might works, but it's far from productive.
Here my note from other forum:

I will post again the ongoing issue with Stories.
Stories work good (not great) on the single file projects. Large projects with multiple files? Not so great. Quite often you have the different setup of stories between the architectural and structural model (main stories are the same, but you have misc stories for reference). Or when you want to delete the story you loose all associated elements. You should be given the option to move the elements to different story.
In the perfect world stories are just reference grids that you can but don't have to use.
Important constrain would be the origin (0,0,0 or the geodetic point).

I have added a mockup of how I see it in next reply.

[Anonymous]

Here is the mockup

[Barry Kelly]

Each building will be its own .PLN file (no need for .MOD files).

If the storey heights in each of the buildings is the same then set up the storey heights in the master site PLN to be the same.
Then bring the building files in as multi-storey hotlink files.
The overall height (in relation to the ground) and rotation of the building can be controlled with the hotlink.

If the buildings have different storey heights then choose the most common setup to make the stories in the master site plan the same as those - ie you might have 4 or 5 buildings with the same storey heights.
Bring those in as multi-storey hotlinks.
For the others you will need to bring each storey in as a separate hotlink and adjust its vertical position manually to bring the building back together.

Once it has been setup you will be able to simply work on the original building files, save them and then update the hotlinks in the master site file.

If you place all of the hotlinks in the "Archicad" layer then you will have exactly the same layer control in the site plan as you do in the individual building files.
This is assuming you use a standard template for all the files so that all the layers & layer combinations are the same (as well as the composites, fills pen colours, line types, etc.).

You want to keep everything standard across all the files - including the storey heights.
If you can't keep the storey heights the same then bring the hotlinks in as separate stories as mentioned earlier.

Barry.

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

Thanks for all the replies. Idea of hotlinking separately every storey to the master project works well.

Kind regards

grubar

[Anonymous]

Well it is a workaround but it's challenging to maintain especially during SD and DD phase. Not to mention the situation where you have multiple studios working on different scopes of one building. Structural engineer likes to have the levels at top of steel while architect wants at top of floor. Imagine a situation when during DD they decide to change the slab thickness. Nightmare. Graphisoft should drop the concept of rigid relationship of the levels.

[Anonymous]

Below comments are the right answers for this problem
I think archicad should consider to create multi storey level for single file. It has beed discussed for long time(Since early generation of archicad but hard problem to resolve)

My addtional sugetion for below question is you should create reference section and plan just to control important issues of the project

linking is good option but someone has to mannage well. It may become 'pain in the ass' in the middle of DD or CD process.
(when you try to correct one problem, you may have to open so many files. Also all different link(forward and backward))

I have a lot of of project which is combination of 10+ buildings
and I am dealing with CD and Shop Drawings often
a building can be one module to the linkage but most of the time I have to create linkage within the building.

Hope your project goes well

[Anonymous]

I generally use the story by story link process as I find it rare to have identical floor to floor heights on all the buildings and even if they are I'm not usually willing to bet they will stay that way.

In case it hasn't been mentioned already, besides linking by stories from the PLN you can also create publisher sets to export modules to be linked into the master file. It's an extra step so not to bother if it's not needed, but it does have some advantages.

One is the ability to turn off layers in the modules that you don't want imported to the master. An example of this is unit plans that have partial exterior and party walls in the source file that would create problems with those in the master. This removes the need for strict layer coordination between all the project files and helps minimize layer pollution.

Another is that it can help get around the problem of inter-storey SEOs not transferring to the master file. This does require making the elements visible in the plan view of the storey being exported (modules cannot be saved from the 3D view and sections etc obviously are not useful for this) so the relevant floor to floor heights will have to match. This has limited utility but can be handy for site to foundation and attic to roof operations where a standardized storey delta (often zero) can be maintained.

There are of course other uses for module publishing but since they are not specifically germane to campus modeling I'll leave it at this for now.

[Anonymous]

I just read this thread. This is one issue we have had to address for some time, but have gotten away with using common story settings across several buildings in our mix-use project. Now we are leaving this system for one that combines several multi-story buildings as we add new buildings to the project. Hot linking .mod or .pln files one story at a time does not seem like a lot of fun, but it may be our only solution. It was the way we did it prior to version 10 or 11. I wish a building file could be hotlinked in with all its stories and brought in as an isolated "island" or "story-free" zone not affected by the story settings of the master file. We experimented by making a building an "object", then loading them in the library. It kind of works, but we make very detailed models. I am sure you all do too. I am looking for other creative solutions as well.