There’s a parallel thread here that started with design software and the ‘relatively’ novice designer. This comment struck me as true wisdom:
<Don’t get lost in 3D. If you can’t feel the flow of the house in plan, no amount of 3D magic is going to make it “right”. >
How many of you pros request/require home-owners to walk through actual similar homes (to whatever degree is feasible)? Particularly with respect to size and flow, a walk-through can often avoid tons of trouble – especially if you are trying to convince the HO that you know best from experience.
Examples: someone trying to push the rules of thumb for minimum aisle width in a kitchen; the planned powder room that will be too small for Superman to change in; big-home features like grand entrances and french rooms in modest footprints; what ceiling to kneecap windows feel like for privacy; what a full wall of bookcases will take to fill with eye-pleasing stuff.
I would think it would be best NOT to show the HO the feature they want, if it the execution is unrealistic for them. Better to see an existing home with 4 principle rooms on the same size footprint, and wave your arms around a lot to scope out what you would give up to nibble a 5th principle room into that space.
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Working out the furnature placement in the apartment my mother moved into, we measured out the rooms on floor of the house and then arranged chairs/tables/whatever to serve as "walls" to help us visualize clearances when furniture was placed in varous arrangements.
I would think that, for some cases, it might even pay to build a mockup in a large garage or whatever. For a big custom builder it might pay to have a permanent setup for this sort of thing.
More than once I have seen them on TOH setup some plywood and horse or similar to show where kitchen counters and island are going to be.
I use up a roll or two of masking tape on the floors to define whatever cabinetry, furniture or fixture might be filling up the room space. A few 1x2's balanced on sawhorses also helps to show where hips and arms will not be allowed to swing freely. Large pieces of cardboard work well to block line of sight and portray bulky items or builtins that eliminate floor and wall space.
Currently looking at finishing out part of an attic. I got a roll of rosin paper and stapled it to the rafter and hung it where the knee walls would go so the HO could get a better feel for the limits of the room. I was afrfaid that he was looking all the way to where the rafters hit the top plate, and didn't realize that the walls would be 5 ft from that point.
The result is a room less than 10 ft wide (at the floor) x 23 ft long, most of the ceiling is sloped, the flat part is less than 4 ft wide and 6'-8" off the floor. Looks like a tunnel to me ... he's thrilled.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
That particulat statement was one I half disagreed with in the other thread. Tony obviously is talenteed in communicating with his clients without the use of 3D, but probably 85% of people I deal with are three dimensionally challenged when looking at floorplans. Those little lines on peper are just little lines on paper to them and not walls, windows and stairs.
this is one of the main reasons I bought the Softplan program. I had no intention of getting into design work but I had too many tiomes experienced the unpleasentness of a difficult and expensive change order a third or half way through the job when owners walked in once framing is complete and ask why things are as they are. They had appoved archy plans without knowing what they represented. the walkthrough left them disappointed and they initiated changes.
There is another thread here right now ( Must be an easier way) where a roof is scissors trussed and the owners now want to let in a shed dormer, something that would have been much easier and less expensive had it been planned for to begin with.
So I got started with SP CAD simply to be able to 3D the plans of the archies I was provided with. I wanted to have satisfyed customers and starting out with good communicvations helps that out. I have always had ideas that archies and HOs liked and chose to incorporate into the projects so one thing led to another and now I do four or five designs a year.
Most are unique homes and remodels so there is little or no chance to do comparable walk throughs in real homes but the renderings I can present generally answer their questions and I have lost rtack of the number of times I have heard, "I am sooooo glad you did this for us." I can even shoot a digital photo from a certqain point of view to use as background in a rendering to demonstrate what their view will be when they are seated on the sofa looking thru the windows chosen for the new addition. things like that help sell a job also.
I have also used foam panels cardboard and paper to do mockups.
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Pif: Thanks for saying that. The average HO has absolutely zero capability to mentally expand from a floor plan to a 3D concept of what it will be like. When we sold our house in Etlanner, we had an office in the DR, w/ the chandelier wired up so I had headroom to walk under it. The DR was separated from the LR by a decorated beam and a column on either side. A door went into the kitchen. We had no less than three real estate agents showing people through ask us if there was a DR in the house. It gets even worse when you consider decorating & wall treatments. Makes you think people are stupid!All except for the couple that finally bought it. They looked at it for about 15 min. Day after they took possession, they came in and repainted; rearranged some kitchen cabinets, ripped out a closet. They had the ability to look at the structure as they wanted it, not as it looked. Very unusual.DonThe GlassMasterworks - If it scratches, I etch it!
It takes a lot of building experience to 'see' the finished product in any representation. 3-d is better than 2. In person is better than onscreen or paper. Finished and furnished is best - but wait, that's a little late for changes.
When I win a billion dollars, I'm only going to work with builders who have a full-size sound-stage with moveable walls and an art department. ;-)
Thanks for the heads up piffin!
Good thread and yes everyone is correct. Most people don't have the slightest idea about how to transfer 2D to 3D. I will not get back into slamming architects, but many of them don't as well. 3D has become a crutch that allow design of many features to slide to the later (if not latest) stages of construction, often to the detriment of the project.
I worked with an architect that had a client many years ago that came to him with a very definite set of goals and the fact that the last two architects they had met with did not understand their program. He saw the project as a slam dunk, because they clearly knew what they wanted and it was perfect for their lot. He spent a couple of weeks on schematic design and called them in to view the result. The whole presentation fell on it’s face and they left in disappointment. On the way out, passing through the drafting room, they pointed at a chipboard model of a house and said that is what they wanted, not what was on the wall of the conference room. If you haven’t guessed by now, they were the same house and Carl never showed them another drawing, only chipboard models. I have visited the house and the couple is just as happy now as they were 30 years ago when he designed it.
Moral of the story ... never assume anyone can read plans, ask.
Mock-ups are an excellent way to confirm understanding and when I designed high rises, it was de rigueur to complete a full size mock-up of the exterior skin. It took 5 tries on my last project to get the architectural precast concrete like the owner envisioned it. Try asking for a 10 foot x15 foot donut panel 8 inches thick five times and see what kind of looks you get when you say you want to change the ratio of white and grey cement and add an additional 10 pounds of Texas pink granite ...
Y’all are on the right track. Always walk you clients through a project as soon as feasible to solidify your understanding of their expectations.
Edited 1/2/2005 9:54 pm ET by Tony
i use the 3d cameras in Chief all the time...... especially if there is a design element that should be brought to the owner's attention...
maybe it's a sideboy in a front hall.. and i want to point out that the hall isn't wide enough...
or a stairwell configuration that requires additonal headroom for code..
any number of things that the average person cannot grasp from 2d ..
click on the camera.. and we can do a full scale walkthru.... panning up... down ... behind.. even the view out the window
or we can take a flyer and give them a birdseye view of the exterior..
this latest version even has one called "glass wall"... where the intervening walls turn to glass.. to reveal what lies beyond... this is different from the older "invisible walls" because you can see the "glass walls" and understand their relationship..
the 3d capability has saved a lot of hearttache in potential misunderstandings ..
the 2d is fine..... but so limiting... now instead of drawing lies.. we draw walls, floors, ceilings, roofs, kitchen cabinets..
there is no substitute for formal training in design... but once you have the training, the 3d cad ability becomes a very effective tool for delivering the design to the customer...
as ever, with any tool.. experience and training are what make the tool effectiveMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I agree Mike. If I was selling retail, a great 3d program would be tops on my sales presentation list.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, all of it is considered bottom of the barrel by Gabe. I am not to be counted amongst the worst of the worst. If you want real framing information...don't listen to me..just ask Gabe!
That glass wall doozy sounds like I'd like it
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What's a french room?
"what's a french room"
The examples I've seen are small, square, useless but tres jolie little rooms that seem to be characterized by opening on all sides to other spaces - via French doors. Some are only large enough to pass through, maybe holding a few slim bookcases, others may lend themselves to a central display such as a central round pedestal table and giant urn, etc.
Someone else may have a more informed definition, but they look like a waste of space to me, which is just fine if you have tons of space and need a place for a big freaking urn.
As a homeowner, I can tell you that the more physical you can make it, the better. The first set of house drawings I ever saw were those for my own house (the previous owners left them behind), and the second set were for the addition. With that great depth of experience, is it any wonder that I had no clue how it would really look? Or that I failed to pick up on a major error made by the architect on the addition?
3D is better than 2D. A model is better than a picture. The real thing may not be better than the model - if I am paying an architect's fees I want an original house, not a slightly modified version of somebody else's. Around here one would be hard put to find a realistic example of my house footprint that would give me an idea of scale. Most homes over 1500 sq ft (mine was 1800 when I bought it, 2300 now) have a minimum of 4 or 5 bedrooms, not the 2 that mine had.
That sounds like you really moved your original home up a notch. It's less of a gamble to be creative and add wow if you can add space at the same time. Some people want what can't easily be executed well given their limitations - and a tried and true solution might be a better option for them than insisting on novelty.
Here, one is surrounded for miles in all directions by solidly built pre-war homes with sky-high prices and a thriving infill and renovation market. There is (let's be honest) a theoretically finite range of floorplans that work well on lots from 14 to 30 feet wide.
In shopping for each home, we got to see dozens and dozens of virtual before-and-after demonstrations of renovations and additions to what was maybe only 9 or 10 truly unique original floorplans. The original styles were high victorian, arts n crafts, and art deco, and renovations dated from everything from mid-century modern, to age of aquarius, to modern day spare-no-expense. What an experience! I almost want to move again, so we can go peeping.
It's only my opinion and preferences should vary. But, I say you can keep your cardboard dollhouses. Take me for a drive and an adventure. But everything you do to help you and I both get it right the first time too, is worth it.
3D is better than 2D. A model is better than a picture. The real thing may not be better than the model -
3d is the only way to go if you can afford it. Many folks like it, but don't want to pay for the cost during design. If you are designing and building, some of these expenses can be absorbed in the overall fee. As mentioned in another thread, I always break design and construction apart. This makes it a bit more difficult to absorb.
I need to look at the various add on programs for (and competition to for that matter) AutoCAD. Revit is great and produces a life like quality to renderings, but a copy costs more money than I want to spend right now. Maybe if I was completing a house design every couple of weeks rather than every couple of months ...
if I am paying an architect's fees I want an original house, not a slightly modified version of somebody else's.
Great point, but many times people bring in sales brochures or plan books as a starting point. I don't consider my using them to be copyright infringement, because they NEVER look like the beginning point when we are done.
To make it worse, the average house I design falls in the 4,500 ~ 6,500 SF range for conditioned area. At this level, everything becomes custom eventually.both God and the devil are in the details
If you cannot visualize it in 3D, you will not be able to draw it in 2D and it cannot be constructed in 3D
tony ... prior to and including version 8 or so ... the Chief Users still had a lot of power users who were designing in Chief... then exporting to ACAD for const. drawings...
almost none of them do that anymore...the 2d (CAD ) capabilities of the current version have made that part moot
i'm not a power user... i don't spend enough time on just design to become that proficient..
and like you said.. the 3d requires time to execute.. even with programs like Chief & Softplan that are object based
most of the time i just want const. drawings.. and i get them pretty fast..
occasionally i need a 3d view to convey to my customer what they are getting into..
i can polish a view easily..
creating an entire 3d plan with no anomalies is the time consuming part.. i almost never do that.. but the capability is there
IE: if you want to do an entire project walk-thru in 3d , that would take an inordinate amount of time...
but simple one shot views are a piece of cake
also... if one's projects are pretty much the same ( same walls, same windows, same floor systems, etc.). those can all be defined as default and the 3d polishing for specifics isn't neccessary
like ACAD... the more you use the program, the more you learn what sequence works more efficiently
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike:
I can mock up an entire plan in AutoCAD and complete a 3D model of same in AutoCAD in about 4~6 hours. The model will be basic and not have windows etc, but the roof and massing will be accurate. Once I have the model each view takes me only a few minutes to create.
I then import the PLT files into Squiggle and render them as if they were hand drawn. The next step it to save the rendered file as a DWG file and port them back to AutoCAD so I can plot them on a border with my company info, etc.
Start to finish, I can usually complete a plan, site plan, and multiple exterior views in 6~8 hours. Clearly this is not a complete project, but it is often the simplest way to get a client off dead center.
I met with one today that is insistent on a hip roof. I showed him the same house with a gable roof and hip roof. Once I had completed one, I created the 3D views and saved the file under a new name and changed the roof. Downside is, he still likes the hip.
Vernacular architecture in central Texas is German in influence and that is about 500 miles north of the nearest hip roof influence (Italy).
Oh well, onward and upward. He is currently working me up a deal on a replacement for my truck that puked it's transfer case yesterday, but that is a story for another thread.both God and the devil are in the details
If you cannot visualize it in 3D, you will not be able to draw it in 2D and it cannot be constructed in 3D