Transcript 119 Towering with ArchiCAD

Topic Number: <119>
Towering with ArchiCAD
By: Elizabeth Bollinger
Date: 26 February 2003
Web Address:
http://www.architectureweek.com/2003/0226/tools_1-1.html
Presented By:
Hesham Mohamed Hassan El-Shahawy
Eureka Tower
When completed, the 90-story Eureka
Tower in Melbourne, Australia will be the
tallest residential building in the world,
rising 985 feet (300 meters) above street
level. It is being built in the arts district
on the Yarra River within the Southgate
precinct of the city. With a facade of
glass and aluminum,
it will have 500 apartments.
Its base is an eleven-story complex containing
a parking garage, shops, and office facilities.
The builder, Grocon Pty. Ltd., takes pride that this large-scale venture is
right on schedule.
Fender Katsalidis Architects (FKAU) used ArchiCAD from Graphisoft for
the design and documentation of the project, and information from their
digital models continues to inform the construction process.
Nonda Katsalidis, principal and design director of the Melbourne-based
architecture firm, explains: "by exploiting the intelligence of the 3D
computer model, we have been able to not only provide construction
documentation when needed by the builder, but to prototype the design
options as part of that process."
Photomontage
of a model of
Eureka Tower,
designed by
Fender
Katsalidis
Architects, in
its Melbourne
streetscape.
Image: Fender
Katsalidis
Two ways to
cut sectional
perspectives
through an
ArchiCAD
building
information
model.
Image: Fender
Katsalidis
Rethinking Design Processes
For good design to emerge, it is essential that an architect respect the
need for multiple iterations in design development despite the pressure
of limited time available to do that work.
David Sutherland, director of planning at FKAU, believes that by fully
exploiting the strengths of ArchiCAD, his firm has found a way to
concentrate on their core skills of design and management. While the
architects test their design ideas, other participants provide much of the
construction information.
By using ArchiCAD, which stores all the information about the building
in a central database, FKAU simulates the building in three dimensions
throughout the design and documentation process.
With ArchiCAD, changes made in one view are
automatically updated in all others, including
plans, sections, elevations, architectural and
construction details, bills of material, window/
door/ finish schedules, renderings, animations,
and virtual reality scenes.
This level of integration makes the management
of the project easier and faster and allows the
designer to design instead of draft. Sutherland
says drafting represents wasted effort because it
produces only lines, and it is more important to be
creating byproduct-rich 3D information.
The byproducts of the ArchiCAD database also
include descriptions of materiality and quality,
specification data, and analysis of
environmental, financial, and construction
issues. In fact, the architect could continue
coordinating such information for the life of the
building through computer-aided facilities
management.
Plan perspective of groundlevel entry forecourt and
restaurant.
Sectional perspective rendered
from the model used for
production of construction
information.
Object-Oriented Design in Practice
The development of the Eureka project into the world's tallest building
could not easily have happened without a comprehensive 3D building
database.
The Eureka Tower database was organized
around the major programmatic components, and
25-person teams worked on subsets of the digital
model: cores, superstructure, podium, tower, and
facade. The project was divided up in this way so
its sheer size would not challenge the computer
hardware and networks.
Rendering of restaurant and podium
level, generated directly from
construction data.
Image: Fender Katsalidis
After building a model of
the podium, right,
architects automatically
generated a building
section. To make the
construction drawing
(left), they only had to
draft text, dimensions,
levels, and insulation
hatching.
Image: Fender Katsalidis
Sutherland says that information produced by teams was hot-linked
to the other models, so that the entire 3D database was coordinated
in dimensional and locational attributes.
Sectional perspective through
apartment entry lobby.
A typical apartment kitchen.
Residential elevator.
Sutherland notes that in conventional practice, those who design a
building are generally not the same people as those who describe it
through construction drawings. With the integrated ArchiCAD
process, everyone is designing.
For 2D output, the firm uses a separate Graphisoft application,
Plotmaker, which allows them to batch-plot drawings. Live design
information is brought into Plotmaker from the 3D model, and live
document information is brought in automatically from a Microsoft
Access drawing registration/ issue/ transmittal database.
Coexisting with AutoCAD
FKAU did not have many problems in converting ArchiCAD files to the
"industry standard" DWG format when exchanging data with their
consultants.
ArchiCAD can automatically filter and reorganize ArchiCAD layers and
information into the AutoCAD format desired by others, and vice versa
when importing data.
Sutherland believes we are really "dumbing down" the information when
we translate building data into lines and text.
He foresees the day when the major subcontractors will use the same
design software as engineers and link the design data directly to
manufacturing processes, interrogating and enriching the 3D building
model created by architects.
Working that way with other participants in construction will provide
architects with the opportunity to ensure integrity of information. Software
for interference detection and virtual model auditing will offer the
advantages of the ongoing and cumulative coordination of information.
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