Exterior walls with multiple finishes

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Hi Cameron,

Actually, what I would do (and originally did) was start with one of our stock wall styles and then first change it to "Use Class Attributes" - I then increase the "granularity" of things somewhat to where each component is in its own class - i.e. sheathing is in the Wall-Component-Sheathing class etc. etc. You can then decide at the class level what the various hatches and textures need to be as well as the previously discussed offsets for exterior cladding and sheathing. I typically end up with a wall style that's specific to the first (ground) floor of the building that's slightly different than the floor(s) above in order to properly deal with how it interfaces with the foundation system. I DO (for residential construction) take the time (and go through the various vertical offsets) to model the SILL PLATE using the Framing Member tool. This gives me a nicely modeled section - don't forget to allow for this when developing your offset in your wall style for that first floor.

Lemme know how it goes - you can always get in touch via e-mail - wgardner@vectorworks.net

Wes

Edited March 24, 2014 by Wes Gardner

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Here's a Wall Style that has been adapted from one of our stock styles that you are welcome to use and abuse.

The Fat Line/Thin Line thing was me experimenting with line weights and should only be used in plan views as it upsets the rendering when they are on... those two items can be eliminated...

Go through the SAVED VIEWS and see what happens.

Notice the wall is in a CONTAINER class called Wall Exterior

[MaltbyDesign]

Thanks again, Wes. I followed your steps and was able to get my sheathing and siding to offset to cover my rim joists. Great tip!

Thanks for the wall style. I downloaded it and added it to a new Library folder that I created for new wall styles. It looks as though this will give me flexibility to change the exterior finish to what ever I want to make it. I'll have to spend some time playing around with it and see how it goes.

Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions and offer your experience. It's much appreciated.

[MaltbyDesign]

Hi Wes, I took an existing wall style and modified it to include an air gap between the sheathing and the siding. I also changed the siding to a panel (I'm using cement board on vertical battens). I then renamed the wall style and replaced the exterior wall styles with my newly created style. The problem now is that I can no longer join the walls (of the new style). Is there a setting that I messed up when I created this new wall style?

Edited to ad: Never mind. I found the problem, I had accidentally toggled to the capped mode.

Edited March 25, 2014 by MaltbyDesign

[Patrick Fritsch]

Hi Cameron, to help you in the BIM learning process sounds like you should get one or two of Jonathan Pickup's manuals (Their pretty cheap). It will be worth it and will speed things up for you, then you could ask a little more in depth technical questions on this board...it's hard for us to go through all the basics. No offence to your architectural skills, the software skills is never related.

[MaltbyDesign]

No offence taken. I do have some of the manuals and tend to look for what I'm trying to do in them before asking here. I couldn't find anything in his manuals that described how to create/edit wall styles. Unfortunately I'm learning VW slowly between projects being done in AutoCad, so it often seems I go one step forward and two steps back.

[Patrick Fritsch]

Yeah, I've been there coming from 2d autocad. Many have complained and still are complaining about the lack of proper/complete architectural "workflow" tutorial that include suggested best practices for using VW. Just looking at Archicad's Youtube channel at all the free workflow learning material make's me jealous.

Don't hesitate to jump into VW on your next small-No rush project, The learning curve is much quicker and easier to remember once you've gone from A to Z on a project.

[MaltbyDesign]

That's what I'm doing now. The little lane house I'm designing is a make-work project for myself while I'm not busy. I figured if I didn't do it now, I might never get to it.

[SonnyLuong]

I am all for this approach, I just did a wall type this way and I think it's the right approach. After all, you have another wall type in the database to reuse in the future if that might be the case.