BACK AGAINST THE WALL

I have a weekly training session at GAJ called "Intermediate Family Editor".  It is aimed at people who have been using Revit actively on projects for a year or two but haven't got too far with the family editor.  This post is a revision aid for that class.  It's fairly basic stuff, but some of you may find it useful.

We are going to make some wall-based families.  New family: Metric Generic Model wall based.  This opens in plan view.

Note the 3 ref planes: "Centre Left-Right",  "Wall" (on the centre line of the wall) & "Back" which is locked to the face of the wall with a zero dimension.  I'm not really sure why it is called "Back" since it is locked to the "Placement Side" of the wall, which many would consider to be the "front".  Perhaps the idea is that this refers to the back of the object which we are going to place on the wall.  But what if that object is going to be a void which cuts into the wall?  Let's move on.

Note also the text object used to label the Placement Side.  This is just a dumb text object.  You can edit this or move it to the other side of the wall and it won't have any effect on the elevation view called "Placement Side"

So let's go to that view and draw some more reference planes.  Two of them are parallel to the centre F/B and equalised with a constrained dimension.  The third is parallel to the ground.  Add dimensions and label them as Width & Height.  Make these instance parameters.

We're going to make some geometry now, and we want to lock it to the ref plans and the level.  We don't want to lock it to the wall by mistake.  We could hide the wall using the sunglasses.  Instead we will simply pull the base of the wall down a little way so that we can see the Reference Level clearly.  Next set the work plane to "Back".  On the "Create" tab, select "Extrusion".

Choose the rectangle tool.  Pick 2 corners.  Lock the 4 padlocks that appear.  Finish extrusion.  Note that the extrusion projects backwards through the wall.  I don't understand why this is.  Could it be a mistake in the way the template was originally set up ?  Not to worry.  Go to plan view and draw a reference plane.

Place a dimension between this new plane and "Back".  Make sure you are picking the ref plane, not the face of the wall.  Label the dimension with a new type parameter called "Depth".  Select the extrusion, and use the shape handles to drag it inside out.  Snap on to the new ref plane and lock the padlock.

That's basically it for our first family, but we need to test it.  Select the wall and rename the type as "150"  That's the thickness of the wall as it comes out of the box (Metric Template)  Duplicate to make a new type.  Call this "250" and edit the wall structure to make its thickness 250mm.  Now that we have two wall types,  we can swap between them to check that the family will behave properly on walls of different thickness.

Before using a family in a project, it is good practice to "flex" it.  Basically you need to vary each parameter, one be one to check that it is behaving as expected.

Start a new project.  Create a wall.  Go back to family editor, "Load into Project"  Place several instances.  Set up two types with different depths.  Experiment with the instance values for width & height.

In the project browser, find the family, and rename it.  At GAJ we use 2 digit codes in our naming conventions.  38 refers to "wall features" ... could be panels like this one, recesses, niches, decorative plaques ...

Now we can go back to family editor & make a new version. When we load it back into the project it will be recognised as a different family because we gave the original version a new name.  Add 4 new reference planes.  Create dimensions and label them as "Border Width" (Type Parameter)

Edit extrusion.  Draw rectangle. Pick the 2 outer corners.  Lock the 4 padlocks.

Load this new version into the project and place a few instances.  Once again, create 2 types and experiment with the instance parameters for width & height.  Choose one instance of each type, and set the elevation to zero.

Notice that despite the different border width of the 2 types, Revit interprets the lowest point of the extrusion as the origin of the family in both cases.  This may be what you want.  Alternatively, you may want to have a consistent origin point, let's say the reference level.  Here's how.

Back in family editor, draw a ref plane that coincides with the ref level and lock the padlock.  Select this plane and check the "Defines Origin" box.  Load into project.

Note the now origin location.  By the way, we didn't need to do this with the first version of the family because there was no geometry projecting below the Reference Level. So let's move on to the third version of the family. Don't forget to rename version 2 first.

New family.  "Metric Profile".  Add four ref planes below the default horizontal plane.  Constrain them with an equalized dimension string.  Add and overall dimension and label it "W".  Create a vertical ref plane to the right of the existing plane.  Add a dimension and label it "T"

Now use a formula to make "T" change in proportion to "W"  (T = W/10)

On the "Create" tab, choose "Line".  Uncheck "Chain" and start to draw lines.  We unlocked the chain function so that we can lock each line as we draw it.  Draw 4 lines, locking them as you go.  Close the loop with a semi-circle.  Choose the "Start-End-Radius Arc".  Pick the two end points and feel it snap to a semi-circle.  Flex the family to check that it resizes proportionally as you vary "W"  Load the profile

Delete surplus reference planes (the 4 outer planes) and parameters (Depth) On the "Create" tab, choose "Sweep".  "Sketch Path".  Pick opposite corners.  Lock the 4 padlocks, finish path.

select profile.  Choose the family you have just loaded.  Note the rotation.  We want it to lie flat against the wall face.  In this case it can be achieved by selecting a rotation angle of -90.  Finish the sweep.

The last step involves linking parameters.  We will use the small "associate family Parameter" button that resides at the end of the line for each parameter.  Find the profile in the project browser.  Edit properties.  Click on the button for the "W" parameter.  Associate it with "Border Width".  The "Border Width" parameter will now act as expected, but instead of controlling an extrusion directly, we are controlling a sweep via the nested profile family.

Load into project.  Place a few instances.  Create types and flex the instance parameters.  You can go also back to each family and add a material parameter.

So we have created 3 wall-based panel families.  These are projecting panels, but we could just as well have created voids that cut into the wall surface.  You can probably think of all kinds of variations on this type of family.  They could represent plaster mouldings, grc components, notice boards, wall-fixed mirrors with moulded frames.   I hope some of you will find this useful.  

INTERIOR AWARDS

GAJ Interior Design department won several awards this week confirming their position as leaders in the Middle East market.  In my experience it's much easier working with an in-house interiors team than external consultants.  We didn't have this capability 10 years ago when I first joined GAJ.  They started small and it's been a pleasure watching the department mature and grow.

You can read more about the awards event at the link below.

http://www.designmena.com/uncategorized/gaj-receives-interior-design-firm-year

They have always been really strong at visualisation.  We have some first rate people working in Max who produce stunning renders, but until recently all the construction drawings were done using 2d Autocad.  I've been plugging away for some time at this and it's starting to pay off.  We have a couple of guys with Revit experience in the department and I'm running "evening classes" at present to extend this capability and form a really solid core group.  Has to be evenings, because we are just so busy.  

Keeps me out of mischief I guess :-)

RECENT WORK

I just want to share some of the Revit-based work that has been coming out of our office recently.  At GAJ we have been using Revit since release 7, installing our first copies 8 years ago.  The journey has been quite challenging, with more than a few twists & turns, but over the past couple of years BIM has become the dominant methodology in the office.

The images are taken from 3 quite different projects.  One is an art gallery which re-interprets a heritage area in a modern manner.  Construction drawings were done using Revit, and the project is now on complete and ready for occupation.  This is a type of work for which we are well known in the region.

There is a perception that Revit is a documentation tool & other softwares are more effective during the early phases of the design process.  Wise warriors choose their battles, so I kept my protests down to a token mumble.  The first priority was to build a strong core of experienced users.

Of late though we have been using Revit much earlier in the process & the second project here is a competition submission put together in a few days by a small team.  This work has made quite a splash in the office and has gone a long way towards convincing the remaining sceptics.

The third project is the only one where I was directly involved.  It's more of a bread & butter project: a concept design report for a complex of 9 buildings produced by a small team working under a tight programme.  The client has already remarked that he is impressed with the amount & quality of work produced.

We used a couple of techniques here that I will discuss in a separate post: attempts to use BIM in a "diagrammatic" mode.  This allowed us to resolve basic space-planning issues before embarking full-blown BIM, using  "real building elements" (walls, doors, rooms)  But what I want to show here is just the end product.

We were able to show that Revit can produce attractive imagery, appropriate to the stage of work & effective in it's ability to convey our design intent to the client.

Along the way I also revisited our furniture library & produced some simple, "generic" families that help to keep the presentation style clean & focussed.  We don't want to distract the client with irrelevant detail.  That's one of the reasons that architects go for a minimalistic style of drawing.

Far too often BIM looks clunky because users haven't figured out how to achieve that lean & hungry look.  That's what we were aiming at here, and I think we have made good progress.  But at the same time (and with very little extra effort) the appendix to the report is packed with conventional drawing sheets: fully coordinated plans, elevations & sections that match the simper representation shown earlier.

BITS & BOBS

Just in case you think I spend all day preparing posts on St Mary Axe, I'm going to share a few snapshots from my "day job".  These are all from projects I've been assisting with Revit support over the past few weeks..

First some walls & railings based on a well known islamic pattern.  Just quick design-development images knocked up in a couple of hours or so.

Second one is a very nice project that I hope will go ahead soon.  These images were created from a quick model I made for some training sessions.  It's a very steep site overlooking the sea.

Third project is apartments in a more urban setting.  I had fun here using a kind of lego-blocks approach to quickly compare different massing options and then adding a bit of facade detail to generate visuals.  An interesting exercise in early concept design work.  I will explain this a bit better when I get time.

The fourth project was a quick masterplanning exercise. Again it was a chance to explore new ways of using Revit at concept stage and some useful lessons learnt.  Simple massing model of  a housing unit.  Schedules that count them up as you go.  Linear & Radial arrays to space them out quickly along the streetscape. 

Another image of the islamic pattern wall placed in context.  This is ongoing development of a project that I've been working on for just over a year now.

Finally another shot of the hillside resort.  Some early attempts to study the way that the room blocks and interlinking pathways interact with the hillside.  I've enjoyed focussing my attention on how to model in a schematic, semi-abstract way so that the design remains flexible and options can be explored rapidly.

GOING ORGANIC

Post number 3 of my pumpkin carving competition entry.

OK so the first image is a nice diagram that Wil sent me. It explains the derivation of the formulae in his original family. Now I understand better what he was driving at.  Probably more scientific than my "Bulge Factor" approach, but I'm going to persevere for the moment with my nested profiles.  In fact I'm going for a "Five Stack" this time around.

You may notice that the profile family looks neater now.  I've got the whole "select-filter-copyrotate" routine down now. But that's probably a separate post.

Using 5 profiles is a bit more hard work, but it gives me more options for sculpting the shape.  This time I want to focus on a more realistic, organic looking pumpkin.  So this represents the opposite pole to that whole Doric, pure-geometry approach to Design.

Now I'm getting a rounded volume with a depressed centre. But it's still too regular.

I can play with the render settings.  Give it a bump map.  This one is based on the Leather Fabrics, but with the depth of the bump map cranked up.

Looking at images of pumpkins I got the feeling that my segments were too regular. So I made another profile, being deliberately sloppy with the setting out.  This is better, but I need to give one or two segments an extra bulge.  I also reached into my bottom drawer for a render texture image that I made a while back to simulate old walling  (we do resorts that capture the feel of a desert village, see this link :  Bab al Shams by GAJ  )  It has a large-scale blotchiness.

Rendered up, the result is starting to get there. The stack of 5 profiles also gives more control over the stem.  I can keep most of it thin then just bulge out quickly at the base.  No way to achieve that with only 3 profiles. Would be better if it curved to one side, but that needs a different family with profiles swept along a path.  While I am busy messing with the render settings I sneaked in a background image from the bit in Cinderella where the fairy godmother transforms the pumpkin into a carriage.

I haven't used the background image in renders much before.  I like the way the automatic sky responds to different times of day.  Flat images of the sky tend to look a bit ... flat.  But perhaps there is scope for using images in a more diagramatic context.  It's OK to be flat when you are not trying for that ultra-photo-real effect.

In the end, everything we do is a diagram, and sometimes a simple thumbnail sketch is the best way of communicating an idea. We should spend more time thinking about what is the BIM equivalent to this.

  The massing tools are one approach, but there must be many others.  Just because it's an intelligent 3d model it doesn't have to be so complex that you can't see the wood for the trees.  For example, a while ago I made a Revit version of one of Corb's simple diagrams.  "Less is more" as a cigar-smoking German once said.

FIRST PRINCIPAL

Last night we were at the Middle East Architect awards ceremony, held on the Palm Jumeirah, which is a short taxi ride from our offices.  We had entered several categories and came away with 4 second places plus one outright winner. 

Appropriately it was our boss, Brian Johnson who won : Principal of the Year 2011, in recognition of 30 years of outstanding work in the Region, including one of Dubai's first iconic buildings, the Creek Golf Club, which features on the 20 Dirham note.  Not so many architectural practices who can hand out bank notes as business cards :)

This year there was a new category: BIM Project of the Year, and I am proud to say that we earned a "Highly Commended" second place for the work my Revit team has done on Saray Bandar Jissah in Oman.  A big thank you for all the guys & gals on the team for all the effort they have put in over the past year on this challenging project.

This is a residential resort with about 350 villas, a short drive from Muscat .  Advanced earthworks are due to start later this year.  The setting is quite dramatic with jagged mountain ridges and valleys leading to an unspoilt beach on the India Ocean.  Our Revit work ranged from Strategic Masterplanning to meticulous detailing of bathroom layouts. 

We have a complex set of cross-linked and nested files in order to handle the complexity of the site within our hardware constraints.  All the villas have 2 versions: the full villa with all the CD sheets and a simplified massing model, sufficient for most masterplanning exercises.  We swop these links in and out as needed.  There is a file for the overall topography, with holes cut in it for each group of villas.  Typically we have 10 or 12 villas in each zone file, where we model all the platform levels, the cut and fill, the landscaping, streel lights etc.

The infrastructure engineers issue their drawings in separate packages arranged by sub-discipline.  The Revit model has really helped us to see how the earthworks, surface drainage, retaining walls, etc fit together in 3 dimensions.  In many cases of course they don't fit together, and very rarely do they take into account the architectural and landscape design requirements, partly because their work had to be completed far in advance of ours, so they are always trying to finalise things before we have been able to develop our designs properly. 

Conversely the landscape designers are a couple of steps behind us and often only have 2 dimensional concept sketches, when we really need to finalise ground shaping levels with the engineers.  Our masterplanning model has been a fantastic tool for highlighting critical issues that need to be resolved and obtaining sign-off of the decisions that matter so that the engineers can complete their tender package and the landscape guys know the parameters whithin which they will have to work when they move to detailed design.

At a smaller scale we have had to develop a strategy that allows a mass concrete marine wall to be built 2 years in advance to a pool specialist coming on site to construct infinity edge pools that overlook a salt-water lagoon.  Once again it was essential to be able to visualise relationships between different elements owned by multiple stakeholders in the design team, and to think about sequences of operations.  Revit has a great ability to duplicate views and hide elements so that you can simulate a construction sequence.  The section box views are also crucial to this kind of coordination exercise.

For the bathrooms I went onto the Duravit & Hansgrohe sites to download 3d CAD models of the selected fittings and incorporated these into Revit families.  Often these familes contain 3 or 4 nested components pre-configured into their correct relationships (toilet pan, TRH, push plate, hand spray, cistern boxing)  If the relationships change,  the families can be reloaded into the 50 or so bathroom types in the project to maintian consistency with very little effort.  This is where the the "revise instantly" origin of the Revit name is vindicated.

Kitchens were done to similar level of detail, and our client put us through 3 or 4 design iterations, all presented in cutaway perspective views as well as traditional plans & elevations for each of the dozen or so kitchen types.

I'll try to do a more detailed post on some of the families we developed for this project soon, but to conclude here's a rendering of one of the villas done directly from the Revit model