Towering with ArchiCAD Presented By: Hesham Mohamed Hassan El-Shahawy By: Elizabeth Bollinger Web Address: Topic Number: Topic Number: Date: 26 February 2003

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. 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." 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. 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 ground- level 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. 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 Rendering of restaurant and podium level, generated directly from construction data. Image: Fender Katsalidis

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. 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. A typical apartment kitchen.Residential elevator. Sectional perspective through apartment entry lobby.

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. Sutherland believes we are really "dumbing down" the information when we translate building data into lines and text. ArchiCAD can automatically filter and reorganize ArchiCAD layers and information into the AutoCAD format desired by others, and vice versa when importing data. 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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