Project Folder Orginization

[Anonymous]

I have been slowly converting our firm over to Archicad. I have just completed our first project and have noticed a lot of our office standard are going to have to be rewritten. One thing I would like your input on is the way you organize your project folder. I've attached an image I've scanned from the Archicad 12 Reference Guide which shows a suggested project folder. Can someone expand on this way of organizing the archicad side of a project? What is your project folder consist of and what exactly goes into each folder? Thanks for the help.

[Erika Epstein]

Hal,
Another way to think about this is to evaluate what you have now with regards to archicad. In what way will how archicad works be different from what you have set up for your current program?

[Anonymous]

Hal,

I don't know if this helps but take a look at our office project set up folder. We've been using this for years...and of course you can add in subfolders as needed.
But for the most part I would agree with Erika. Just take what you have already done and apply it to archicad.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Brian that helps a lot. One question for you: What goes in to the Construction Administration and Pending Admin Review folders?

[Chazz]

One piece of advice that you probably already know: make an office standard project directory (with all the folders you want) and leave it someplace safe, maybe with a zipped backup. Then every place where the project name or number appears in the directory structure, tag it with a word like "JOBNAME" or something. Then copy your directory as you get new projects and use a utility (on the Mac I use something called R-Name but there are lots on both platforms) to automatically replace JOBNAME with the actual job name. I always leave the current PLN file at the root level (ie top level) of the project directory.

Here's what my Project directory looks like for a project I just started in Spain:

[Anonymous]

Hal,

The Construction Administration Folder houses all your project changes after you have issued your construction set. You can include a correspondence folder between Owner, Contractor, Consultant, and Architect (etc.) here. Also to include ASI's, RFI's, COR's, PR's, (Sketches) etc. anything that involves a change during construction and project closeout information. The Pending Admin folder is for the administrative staff that is working with you to handle all the corresponding paperwork for your project (depends if you use an admin person at your firm). For us our Admin person will review all of our AIA documents, proposals, in essence any written document that leaves the office.

I would also include that Chazz's comment on project setup/directory is key for office consistency. The only comment that I would say is if your working off a server and you have IT personal monitoring everything, they should be able to lock down and create project folders with permissions so that nothing is accidently overridden by the design staff. In addition to this they can pre-populate your folders with the essential information to start a project without worry of deleting anything important.

[Anonymous]

Chazz wrote:
Then copy your directory as you get new projects and use a utility (on the Mac I use something called R-Name but there are lots on both platforms) to automatically replace JOBNAME with the actual job name.

Anyone know a utility that does this on Windows? I thought it could be done in DOS with the RENAME command, but can't figure it out.

Hunter.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Whatever your platform or renaming method might be;

Having the project ID in the names of the sub directories makes
all renaming a lot more difficult than having the ID just in the file names.

It is very difficult to find and rename stuff where the paths change all the time by the renaming process itself

In addition relative linking inside the project benefits greatly of having
identical subfolders between projects.

--
Regards, Juha