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Advise on Project Setup - Multiple Similar Homes


LCarm

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I have a project with 20 homes on a street.  There are essentially 2-3 plans that are similar with each having 2 different "options" either room changes or elevation changes, or roof.  

Any advise from veterans on how to set up this project from the beginning?  I have a model where the plans are essentially the same but then have the different options on separate layers so I can turn them off and on.  I am almost done modeling the 2nd home in a separate file but then was thinking about construction documents and would like to use the first set of CD's as a template for the others.  

What is the easiest / most organized way of doing this without a lot of repeat work?

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It depends on what your deliverables are and how much these homes vary in size and complexity.

Are they multi-level?  Are they on flat sites or are there site considerations that influence the buildings?

Are you making a site model showing all of the unique home variations in 3D?  What about a 2D site plan?

 

Are you creating separate CDs for each unique building variation (20 sets of drawings)?

-more work for you, less work for the builder perhaps

or

Will you create a set of CDs for each plan with variations? (2 or 3 sets of drawings with options)?

 - probably the most drawing efficient if the options are fairly simple, but requires strict organization on your part and the home builder(s)

 

What about permits?  Some jurisdictions and inspectors are finicky about plans with variation for inspections.  Knowing what they want will shape your process too.

The roofs are really the tricky part, depending on the complexity of the buildings and their variations.

 

In any case, you will be doing a lot of referencing to reduce the work.  

Explain your end game and I imagine you will get some better advice.

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Thanks Jeff-

The homes are relatively simple 1500-1700 sf 2 story homes. 

They are on flat pads, I will have to do a separate site plan for each one but they will not effect the structure. 

I do want to do a basic 3D site to show the different variations, and would like the freedom to switch out the versions like I have with the same model.We will not do a separate CD set, it will be 3 sets of CD's with options which are fairly simple. 

I am very very organized and used to multi-family project organization but do not want to shoot myself in the foot.  I am a newbie to VW and all of the other projects I have done so far in VW have been one building, I do not have enough experience to know the pitfalls.  

For the city we can do master plans with all the options and then the a-la-carte site plan would pull the building permit calling out which master plan.

I feel like I know how I want to set it up:  3 sets with the options managed by design layer visibility.  I just want to, if this makes sense, build each set at the same time and they are very similar.  So how do I use the one as a template while simultaneously working on the other?  ie: notes will be the same, layout is similar, roof slopes the same,  floor heights the same, I could easily just shift room names for the next one etc. 2 of the homes have almost identical 1st floors but different 2nd floors.  How much sharing or copying from one to the other can I do reasonably?  Or do I bite the bullet and just power through one set and then drop the model of the next one into a copy of the finished set?  

Thank you to all responders!

 

 

 

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I haven’t tried this recommendation, but you could mock it up to test before committing to the approach...

You could create a master model for each of the common floor plans limiting their content to the features that appear in every variation.  You could then create variation models that contain only the elements unique to that variation and reference in the appropriate master model.  Changes made to the master model would then update the variation models.  Each variation model could then be referenced into the master site model.  This would give you a collection of models with no duplications and the control over how everything looks in a 3D site plan.

 

You could then create a master set of drawings for one building, referencing in all of the building variation models on top of one another.  You could create your sheets and viewports to cover the largest variation since they are smaller homes.  Once everything was set up to your liking, you could do “save as” to spawn the major floor plans with their respective variations.  Once these sets were generated, you could delete the appropriate references in each set and control the visibility of everything with design layers.

 

I’m a landscape architect, but used a similar approach to a large marina club where I had to manage 14 to 17 unique buildings, some with design and placement variations we were studying.  I made each building a separate file and referenced them into the site.  When I would get architectural updates, they would update the site automatically.  I ended up having almost a dozen site design variations due to changes in building locations that I managed in my site model with design layers for each hardscape and planting design.  The key to making it easier was identifying the facilities that would be common to each variation and managing the to prevent duplication of objects using a similar referencing scheme.  In my case I was designing site features including pools, playgrounds, athletic fields, and an outdoor amphitheater which were common to most schemes, but had their locations and orientations  react to needs of the building.  Connecting features such as walkways, roads, and parking lots were unique to each scheme.  Breaking it all up with different references made it fast to deal with changes, but it takes discipline and organization to keep it from falling apart.  The content you and I work on are different, but the organizing principles are similar.

 

hope all that made sense and helps.  Hopefully you will get some more responses from some architects that deal with your situation.  However you proceed, I highly recommend mocking up the organization before getting too far along.  Having a strategy for how you use your origins/datum, levels, and/or stories is importantly.  And be thoughtful about your roof strategy since they will show up on your site too.

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My 10c:

 

Are the house designs already well advanced or will there be changes and multiple tweaking?


If it’s the former then there may not be much to gain from an elaborate master file referencing system as it’s just a case of getting the cd’s done. If so I would get one set done and dusted, perhaps the simplest one, then use that as the template of the next one, and so on. 
 

If on the other hand you are still working through the developed design of the houses then there will definitely be gains in setting up a really good file structure.


Also, are you 3D modelling each house? Will you be using live sections and elevations? Referencing in bits and pieces to create a 3D model may be tricky if you want seamless wall/roof surfaces/ junctions etc.

 

From what you have said I think what you have got going sounds pretty good. Getting familiar with the range of Vectorworks tools and techniques will help. Some suggestions/food for thought:

 

Design layer viewports:
I suggest having design layers dedicated to just DLVPS so that switching between options can be quickly done by tweaking design layer visibilities. You can reference in other files via dlvps also. You cld have a standard details file with all your details drawn on design layers and use dlvps to bring them into multiple files.

 

Saved views:

Set these up to quickly switch between different set ups.

 

Symbols:

Use these as much as possible. If you find yourself copying and pasting something, stop and ask yourself if you should make this a symbol instead. Symbols make global edits quick and keep file sizes down.

Common symbols can also be stored in a rsymbol library file and perhaps even referenced into your cd sets. Changes to a referenced symbol in the library will push through to all the cd sets.

 

Record Info, Worksheets & Data Tags:
Used in conjunction with symbols these can make working with lots of data over multiple files much more streamlined and consistent. It can take a bit of work to get to grips with it but defo worth it in the long run.

 

Notes Database

You could create a notes database for the project. Standard notes could be located in a central resource. You can create a notes database via the callout or general notes tools. You can use worksheets to do global edits of notes throughout a file.


Hopefully you’ll find some of this useful. Good luck!!

Edited by Boh
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Thank you both!

I do have the models completed so I probably will not break them apart *great food for thought on planning future projects thank you!*

I think I understand how I need to set up the hopefully most efficient CD sets. 

I think the master site model may be a bit tricky where I want to turn on and off the different versions.

Let me know if this would make sense and do-able:  use design layer specific DLVPS to reference each version of the model, controlling with what is visible in each viewport. 

Toggle on and off the design layers that contain the different version viewports and then create saved views for however many different site options I want to show.  

Once client decides on site versions, I can eliminate the viewports / design layers that are not longer needed.

 

Thank you, I feel 100x smarter than I did this morning 😁

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51 minutes ago, LCarm said:

Let me know if this would make sense and do-able:  use design layer specific DLVPS to reference each version of the model, controlling with what is visible in each viewport. 

Toggle on and off the design layers that contain the different version viewports and then create saved views for however many different site options I want to show.

This is precisely what I would do. The dlvps can be easily nudged around on the site if needed and you have full control of visibilities of all classes and design layers.

 

In your situation, where you have multiple variations, using saved views will really help. However I don't think saved views will adjust the design layer or class visibilities of a viewport. So you will need dlvp's of each version. (I think this is what you were suggesting anyway).

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