CU1805

SOFTWARE review
Not just a façade
Graphisoft's newly released ARCHICAD 22 focuses on Façade Design as its lead feature
Graphisoft used its UK ARCHICAD
User Conference, held in London
in May, to launch ARCHICAD 22,
the latest version of its architectural design
software. The new release focuses on
several of its design features, along with
improvements in construction modelling
performance, information management
and 2D performance.
FAÇADE DESIGN
One of the most interesting features of
ARCHICAD over the years has been
Façade Design - the creation of repeatable
patterns to add a distinctive style to large,
anonymous structures. With ARCHICAD
22 Graphisoft has taken the feature and
remastered the workflow to provide more
flexibility in providing hierarchical curtain
wall systems using modular patterns.
The new façades are created using
standard graphic software output, or
freestyle sketching, and applied to either 2D
and 3D elevations in a natural design
environment. One of the examples shown at
the UK User Conference used sketches of a
leaf which were scaled up to create striking
façade designs on the side of a building.
Developing repetitive patterns within
ARCHICAD 22 is simple. All you need to do
is to outline the bit of the sketch you want to
use, then copy and paste to create the
pattern. When applied, ARCHICAD ensures
that the curtain wall system being
created is both structurally correct
and adheres to local
requirements for
documenting and listing.
Complex curtain wall systems can be
created within Graphisoft's native BIM
environment using the modular patterns,
which are automatically positioned to
provide precise vertical and horizontal
junctions, for finishing off with a selection of
louvres and other accessories. The façades
are created as BIM components within
ARCHICAD, which allows document
standards to be maintained, and for
customisable, scale-sensitive
representations of the components to be
produced fully detailed. It also allows
schedules to be created with very accurate
lists of details of frames, mullions and other
accessories.
Designs can be enhanced further by
utilising the recently released
ARCHICAD/Rhino/Grasshopper Live
Connection tool. This allows users to draw a
couple of 2D lines and then develop them
further to assemble complex patterns using
Grasshopper's algorithmic workflow,
working on the Grasshopper canvas to
create any pattern of façade that can be
described using the software. Using the
tools you are, in effect, deconstructing the
design and placing them in a
Rhino/Grasshopper workflow with its
numerous extensions, which enables
you to perform total
design optimisation and validation. If you
can think it, you can do it!
PARAMETRIC CUSTOM PROFILES
Whilst Rhino and Grasshopper enable you
to think outside the box, you mustn't forget
ARCHICAD's parametric capabilities, which
can be used to create intelligent profiles for
walls, beams and columns - or you can use
those available from a comprehensive
library of profiles. This allows you to define
parametric edges to profiles using the
Profile Editor and to play around with offsets
or cutouts within walls, etc. You can do this
on the fly, or save the profiles attributes with
the profile you have created or downloaded.
Here, again, an example was provided at
the User Conference which showed a
curved profile being inserted in a wall, and
subsequently partitioned to add window
frames, one of which had a top hinged
opening. A refinement to this tool enables
"Custom Geometry Modifiers," which uses
one Profile to describe several different
custom wall, column and beam geometries.
By adjusting the dimensions of the
Parametric Custom Profile's skins, the same
Profile can be fitted into several different
details in the project. The height of different
layers in composite structures, for example,
can then be adjusted individually.
24
May/June 2018