2020 | 014 – Foundations of the Attribute System

Hey, welcome, everyone, to the ARCHICAD Best Practices 2020 training course.  Let me know that you can hear me and see me, and we’ll get going momentarily.  I’ve moved my camera around.  We’ll see how this works.  Someone mentioned something about my background looking like I was in a storage locker or something like that, so I thought I’d just switch it up.  So, you see me at my desk a little differently.  [0:00:37]

So, OK.  Now you’re all seeing me.  OK, good.  Alright, so we’ll get going.  Let me know what you think of having my camera off to the side like this.  So, I’m showing my screen here.  There we go.  Alright, so we are finishing up the first section of the Best Practices 2020 course, which I’m calling the Fundamentals – the organizational foundations.  So, we’ve gone through some things about what are the best practices for ARCHICAD – the organizing principles, how to set up your project effectively with libraries and manage it over time with migration.  [0:01:38]

How do you save things that you’ve created once using favorites, Interactive Legends, and other locations where you can save those materials?  Then, we looked at the overall structure of ARCHICAD’s Navigator, which we spend so much time using to move around from one part of the project to another, and controlling the views because the views are so fundamental to being able to either model and develop your project or create working drawings or a combination of the two.  [0:02:14]

So, I see Scott made a comment about it.  Great advertising opportunity.  Yeah, I should put something up there.  Right, good idea.  Alright, so let’s look at what we’re going to be focused on today, and move this onto the screen here.  Alright, so we’re going to be looking at what you might call the foundations of the attribute system.  [0:02:47]

So, Element Attributes are definitions that are the foundation of every element you model or draw in ARCHICAD.  Every element in general has a layer, refers to line types, fills. Many of them refer to surfaces, building materials, composites, and complex profiles. There are some exceptions.  Windows and doors don’t have layers because they are part of walls that have layers.  [0:03:16]

These are managed by a dialog box that many of you would be quite familiar with called Attribute Manager.  In Attribute Manager, we’ll also find things like layer combinations that do not refer to individual elements. They just control which layers are visible and which might be locked or have other settings.  The pen sets, which, again, individual elements don’t refer to pen sets.  They refer to pens, but the pen sets determine how your views are shown, in part.  [0:03:50]

Cities, which are definitions of locations with their latitude and longitude so that you can calculate some studies, and operation profiles, which are used for energy analysis.  So, when you say this is a hospital, and everything has to be maintained at a certain even temperature for almost all the rooms except the storage rooms, which have different requirements, or in a home, when you’re calculating energy, you may say that in the evening, it has to be maintained at a certain temperature, but during the day, when people are perhaps out working, it has a different operation profile.  [0:04:31]

Retail business have to be heated during their opening hours – things like that.  So, those are in Attribute Manager and managed through the same dialog, but not associated with individual elements.  Now, I’m going to be just spending some time demonstrating and showing the relationship between these element attributes because they are so fundamental, so to speak, to what you see in your model, in your design, and in your drawings.  [0:05:05]

If you think about it, and I think it will come naturally as you think about it, but we don’t often think this way, those refer to line types.  You create a fill. Of course, it could be a percentage – 50% poche, but in general, they have lines which could be solid or otherwise, surfaces, which are the appearances of 3D elements of the planar surfaces of these elements that refer to these fills, and line types.  Of course, it refers to textures often as well.  [0:05:44]

Building materials refer to surfaces and fills, so every building material has a default surface that is what it would look like if you don’t override it.  What does concrete look like if you don’t paint it?  What does wood or dry wall look like if you don’t put a coating on it?  Composites and complex profiles refer to the building materials. They’re made of building materials.  Years ago, before ARCHICAD 17, composites were made of fills, and complex profiles as well.  [0:06:17]

Now, they’re made of building materials, which, in turn, are defined in part by fills.  So, we’re going to be looking at just how all of these things fit together from a high level. We’re not going to be going into all the definitions of how you define a new fill and what are all the different types of fills and how do you define surfaces, and what are all the different options for generating surfaces and duplicating them and managing them.  [0:06:45]

I want you to just understand how everything fits together because then, it will be much easier as you think about it.  I need to create a new composite or wall assembly.  What does it depend upon? If, for example, your composite depends upon a building material, maybe it’s some type of proprietary building material that’s new on the market or something like that, or it’s just something that’s not in the standard library.  You’ll need to think about, “Alright, before I create that composite, I need to either decide what building materials we already have that will be good enough for representing it or how I create building materials that are going to be used in that composite.”  [0:07:32]

Similarly, when you’re defining anything related to your visual appearance, how are you defining the surfaces? So, let’s take a look in the context of the model at these relationships and just make sure they’re clear in demonstration.  So, let’s see here if there are any comments here.  Alright, so Christian writes, “Eric, you should hang a backdrop of a Hawaiian beach in the background so all of us in the Northern hemisphere feel warmer.”  Yes, that would be a good idea.  [0:08:12]

We’ve been not so cold here, but we have had a lot of rain.  Today has let up, but we’ve been having quite a bit of rain.  So, let us go into the project.  I’m going to turn off the heater now and have a sip and just move my notes off to the side so I can see them.  Alright, so in our ARCHICAD environment, we have the options menu, and the Element Attributes are found under the options menu – either directly underneath in the U.S. version or in a separate menu called Element Attributes, and then you’d see it off to the side in that submenu.  [0:09:08]

So, we have lines or line types – of course, layers, lines, fills, building materials, composites. These are the ones that I was referring to as Element Attributes, line through composites. We also have the complex profiles, which again, we’re going to be drawing and using and assigning different elements to use.  [0:09:33]

We also have the pens and colors and the operation profiles that are accessible from the Attribute Manager.  So, the Attribute Manager is here.  If I open up Attribute Manager, we’ll see the list of different types of attributes up at the top.  Now, this is changed in the last couple of versions of ARCHICAD, so before ARCHICAD 21, I think we had layers in one, and then we had a separate one for layer combinations.  Now, this is combined, and the same with pens and pen sets.  They were separated, but now these are organized a little bit differently.  [0:10:16]

So, in the upper section here, we have the layers, and of course we’re all very familiar with assigning elements to layers.  If you go ahead and you rename this be aware that there are index numbers here, and that’s what ARCHICAD is referring to.  It says that this element that you’ve drawn, or all of these elements that are drawn on this layer, are actually on the layer with Index 4, and if you rename this, those elements will still know that they’re on this layer because they’re assigned to Index 4.  [0:10:49]

So, this is an important point to recognize is that element attributes in general – the index numbers are primary.  ARCHICAD refers to them for each of the elements, and the names are something that are really for your convenience.  Now, without going into a whole explanation of Attribute Manager, we do have our layer combinations here, so if I select the – actually, I’m sorry, these are layer combinations here.  These are the layers down below.  [0:11:29]

This is basically just giving you some ability to change the names and individual settings.  It’s not quite as full-featured as the Layer Settings dialog, but you could do some management here.  What Attribute Manager does is it gives you easy access to naming and some organizational tools such as importing and exporting these attributes as opposed to the individual dialog boxes for layer settings or complex profiles, where you can actually edit more of the details of each particular attribute.  [0:12:14]

Now, as I said, the pen sets refer to pens, and these are not actually associated with building elements.  The elements, of course, use different pens, so you’re going to be saying you want to draw this line or this composite wall using certain pens, and we can switch the active pen set without modifying the element, and that may make the lines look different.  So, on an electrical plan with a different pen set, the walls may fade to a light grey, leaving the electrical elements more prominent.  [0:13:03]

Now, as we get into the details of the Element Attribute system, we start to look at the definitions of the line types and how fills depend upon the line types. So, each fill here is going to be referring back to the pens, and each surface here is going to be referring back to fills.  Now, in some cases, you can see the dependencies in this dialog box.  [0:13:41]

So, for example, if I go to any of these surfaces, we can see that there’s an associated attribute of the fill type there.  If we go to the fill here, I don’t think – no, we don’t see any dependencies shown in this dialog.  So, the Attribute Manager dialog is an attempt by Graphisoft to give you convenient management, but it’s not uniform.  Every panel in it has its own idiosyncrasies, but if we look at the general thrust of this as we move from left to right, these are depending on previous settings.  [0:14:25]

So, for example, when I get to building materials, and I highlight a building material, we can see that the building material is referring to a surface as part of that, and it’s also referring to fills.  So, for example, this fiberglass insulation is going to be seen if you don’t coat it with anything, and if you’re cutting through the wall or have an exposed end of the wall, we would see a surface – in this case, pink, and then in some cases, when you’re cutting through it, you may have a fill pattern that indicates that it’s a fiber insulation.  [0:15:05]

So, this is dependent upon the other elements.  Now, you notice the index numbers.  Again, this is saying that the building material called fiberglass depends upon these index numbers.  If we renamed these for some reason, then it would still be depending upon the ones in that index position, and as we go further to complex profiles, each one of these – let’s say, is depending on building materials, fills, surfaces, and in some cases, extra dependency on line types.  [0:15:47]

Let’s just see, if we go to another one here.  Yeah, so they are using different line types for different purposes.  So, this one depends upon the ones to the left.  If we go to the complex profiles here, again, the complex profiles – which most of you know fairly well, but in case you don’t, these are shapes that are essentially the section cut-through of walls, beams, or columns, and they are made up of bounded areas of building materials, which look like fills when you’re drawing them, but they’re actually defined by the building materials.  [0:16:35]

So, just like the composite, it’s a uniform extrusion of a building material in a skin.  The complex profile are bounded polygons of the building material that each show up as a fill and have surfaces and line types.  So, these are all built on top of each other.  If we look at the rest of the Attribute Manager things here, these are zone categories.  I had forgotten about that.  Let me put this in.  So, the zone category is sort of a separate system because it only relates to zones, and it defines the appearance in terms of color.  [0:17:26]

You can see all the color coding, the name – of course, and the association in terms of how you want an annotation – a zone stamp, to be used.  So, you can choose certain zones that are used for certain purposes, like calculating area might have one representation, whereas other ones that are used for room naming may provide information about the room finished would use a different setting for the zone stamp.  [0:18:00]

Now, again here, I’ve forgotten in Attribute Manager that we also have the mark-up styles. So the mark-up styles here are, again, like the layers.  They’re a way – well, actually, what would be the closest equivalent?  When you’re marking something up, you can give it a category.  Is it a collision?  Is it very problematic – something that really needs to be addressed? Is it approved?  Has it already been resolved?  So, these are status tags that you can see for the mark-up styles, and they do have appearances, and these appearances are based on, certainly, the pen numbers.  [0:18:49]

So, they are built on top of the pen system here, and I did mention the names of cities, and these are things that you can add to – basically, if you’re working in a particular area that’s not in this system or not close to the ones that are predefined, you can add new cities or new locations for projects, then put in latitude and longitude and time zone, and it will allow ARCHICAD to calculate the sun position for whatever time of year and time of day that you want.  [0:19:24]

We have, then, the operation profiles, and this one here – not sure why it’s not allowing me to look at it.  Not quite sure.  Can’t remember what this particular icon is supposed to be, but it’s possible it’s related to teamwork, and since we’re not in a teamwork file, it’s inaccessible, and in Attribute Manager, we can look at everything defined here in the project as attributes.  [0:20:00]

Here’s layers, layer combinations, pens, line types, etc., and the reason why we might do that is because we can, on the right side of Attribute Manager, open up another file and copy information from the other file and, in some rare cases – particularly when developing or updating a template, I have found it useful to go and select all of the attributes from another file and overwrite the ones in the current file.  [0:20:31]

So, when I’ve been developing MasterTemplate and making some subtle changes and don’t want to go find all the little things I’ve done, I may go and grab everything and overwrite.  Now, we’re not going to be spending time today looking at the operations of Attribute Manager with these buttons here about overwriting and appending.  Just know that, from a management point of view, these allow you to access groups of settings from another file and bring them into this file or, potentially, take them from this file and create a temporary working file outside of it that can store some of those settings.  [0:21:13]

Now, let’s take a look just at the actual dependencies in practice, meaning not just in the Attribute Manager, but in the dialog boxes.  So, if I go to the options menu, and I go to Lines, we have these various line types.  They’re not dependent upon the pen. They’re not dependent upon the surface.   They’re not dependent upon anything else.  They are just a way of drawing lines.  [0:21:42]

Now, we have – in terms of just a quick overview of the line types, there are dashed lines.  We do have the one special dashed line that’s solid, but in general, if they’re dashed, they’re going to have one or more solid parts and one or more gaps between them.  We also have a symbol type, which allows you to have more complex shapes, like potentially sketchy bubble lines and other ones that maybe show the stonework or edging – things like that.  [0:22:22]

So, these are symbolic lines.  So, we have two different types of line types. Each one of these ones that exist here is based on that.  So, the ones up above this area here are the dashed lines, and the ones down below here are the symbolic lines.  So, if we look at the symbol line type here – actually, I guess.  For some reason, Siri thought I was talking to it, and it says, “Hey Siri, here are the dashed lines and the one down below. Here are the symbolic,” so you never know when these devices are listening.  [0:23:14]

Alright, let’s see whether we have some comments on this here.  OK, so I’m getting a little bit into the weeds here because what I wanted to do was make sure you understood the dependencies and what the implications are, in terms of your model management.  So, let’s go into the options fills, and if we look at the fills, we have the group of solid fills, which are essentially percentages.  Each one of these, regardless of its name – like the fact that it’s called Glass or Standing Seam Cut Fill or Stone Finish Cut Fill – these are all percentages of being seen, how opaque or transparent they are.  [0:24:08]

The vectorial fills are defined with lines that are in a script. The script is not something that’s easy to write, although I have done it a long time ago. It does allow very efficient drawing of patterns like this, but the ones that we would typically create fresh, like if you needed them, are called symbol fills. Let’s see if we find this, and these are ones where you can – if I zoom in here, you can see there’s a lot of detail, and this is the type of pattern that you can create custom for your needs, and then these can be used, of course, in surfaces.  [0:25:04]

So, surfaces would be the next up. In this case, they’re not in the order of dependency because surfaces are the next up after fills, and building materials will use surfaces.  So, maybe this is – not even alphabetical here.  I don’t know how Graphisoft organized these.  Maybe they figure that building materials are more frequently access than surfaces, but if I go to Surfaces, each one of these surfaces is going to be based on a fill here.  [0:25:34]

So, when you have, for example, a surface that is a brick, it will have a fill and texture, so the fill and the line is dependent upon those elements.  So, this is going to mean that if you want to have a brick with a particular pattern in an elevation or the types of 3D views where you’re showing line work instead of a surface, then you need to have that fill defined ahead of time or created and then reassign this.  [0:26:15]

If we go to something else like the shingle one here, we can see the reference for what we would see in an elevation there.  If we go on to the options, building materials, these then – every one of them, like if we go to wood, hardwood, it’s referring to the fill – what it would look like if it was seen in line work.  I’m sorry, if it was cut through, and I’m sorry, this is the fill. This is the surface here.  You can see the little paintbrush here.  [0:26:57]

So, all of these – just wanted to make it clear the dependencies of it.  Now, the dependencies become important when you’re trying to define something new, and you realize, “Oh, I need to define something else first,” or create it in conjunction with it.  It also becomes important when you’re managing a template or your projects and bringing things in from one project to another.  [0:27:28]

So, one of the things that I’m going to show you in a minute is just what happens when you import things and copy and paste things from one project to another and how these can interact.  So, let us go here.  So, again, if we go to the building materials – if I go to composites, again, these definitions here are the building materials that are being referred to, and these are the line types that are being referenced there.  [0:28:09]

So, each one of these is defined in relationship to the lower items in the attribute foundation, and finally, the complex profiles – we go to Profile Manager, and we pick one of the profiles like this, and I say to edit it.  Each one of the areas that is a solid in that profile is made of a fill pattern, but this fill pattern is a building material.  So, again, you can see the names. These are not just hatch patterns.  These are actual building materials, and each one of these also is using line types for the outline, if you are seeing it in a cut-through section.  [0:29:03]

Now, let’s see what happens when we bring something in from outside.  So, in terms of management, if I go here to open up a – well, we’ll just create a new project from the standard 22 template.  So, I’m in MasterTemplate, and so with MasterTemplate, we have a bunch of additional resources. These additional resources are intended to just make it easier to get certain things done because you don’t have to invent them again. [0:29:42]

The standard Graphisoft template is certainly – when you’re working, you’re likely to need to create more things because it’s a more compact and minimal framework, so let’s see what happens when I decide in the standard template that I want to use something from another project that’s been defined, such as in the MasterTemplate sample project.  [0:30:09]

So, if I look at the composites here, you can see the list goes not quite the full height of the screen.  I’m going to guess it’s about 30 different walls, roofs, and floors.  Now, if I go to the sample project here, and we go back to the floor plan and let’s say this is probably a complex profile. Yeah, this is a profile here.  Alright, this is a wall that’s similar to other walls in the standard environment, but it does have a designation AMT Wall 2x4, so it is an ARCHICAD MasterTemplate wall with a certain dimension 2x4 framing on gyp board – gypsum board both sides.  [0:31:15]

Now, if I copy this here – so, I just copied that.  I’m going to go back to the other file, and I paste, what’s going to happen?  Well, first of all, that can decide where it’s going to go. I’m just going to paste it in the current view, wherever it happens to be, and let me just click outside to drop it in.  Now, it will look the same as it did in MasterTemplate.  If I go now to the options, composites, and scroll down here, we’re going to see that this AMT Wall was added in.  [0:31:56]

So, this is a way that you can easily bring in elements and definitions of element types from another project, and you could bring in a whole bunch of things.  You could select the whole model and bring it in.  Even afterward, if I delete this here, that is still going to be in that environment.  So, if I go back to the composites, it’s still in there.  Now, if I undid the paste, it would remove it, but just deleting it after the fact, it’s already brought it in.  [0:32:42]

Now, let’s look at the definition of that.  That is made of gypsum board here – 09 Gypsum Board Framing Vertical.  Now, Wood Framing Vertical, I think, is – if I press down on it, ooh, interesting.  Wood underlay.  Wasn’t it Wood Framing Vertical?  Let me just cancel this here, so I’m going to the composites, going to open up this one here – Wood Framing Vertical.  [0:33:18]

So, Wood Framing Vertical, I believe, did not exist in this file.  Let’s just take a look at the options, building materials here, and the wood – actually, here’s Wood Framing Vertical. This was added in in MasterTemplate, I believe.  When I brought in that composite, it brought in this one. Now, how can I tell whether it’s a new one?  This is an interesting management question, and since we’re talking about management of attributes, it’s a good thing to understand.  [0:34:00]

I’m going to go back to the options, Attribute Manager, and again, this is just a very high-level look at Attribute Manager as opposed to all the details of how to work with these attributes.  If I go to the building materials, and we see that here are the building materials and their index numbers, if I scroll down, you can see that they go up to 72.  So, Graphisoft had 72 building materials that they felt were a good foundation for the U.S. version of ARCHICAD, and Wood Framing Vertical came in with an index number much higher.  [0:34:40]

So, what does that mean?  Well, it means that ARCHICAD said, “Alright, I’m going to bring in this composite, which is made of certain things – wood framing and gypsum board.”  When it saw that those building materials were not necessarily in the system, like the Wood Framing Vertical, it added it to the attribute list, so now this wall will perform the same as it did in MasterTemplate.  [0:35:12]

The Wood Framing Vertical building material has some priority, so this number here refers to how strong it is relative to other elements and whether it passes through another element or bumps into something, which part will be stronger, or which will give way.  So, it also refers to, in this case, wood species – pine knobby vertical. That’s a little bit wordy, but in MasterTemplate, we have a bunch of wood samples – wood species, so these are just for visualization purposes of surfaces.  [0:35:56]

So, this one, when it came in, brought in that particular surface, which again has an ID 323.  Let’s go to the surfaces, and we’ll see down here that this one has been brought in. It’s higher than all the other index numbers, and the AMT Interior Default surface was also brought in.  Now, what does that refer to?  This brings up a whole concept of default surfaces and default definitions that are powerful organizational tools.  [0:36:35]

So, AMT obviously refers to ARCHICAD MasterTemplate.  Interior Default is a surface definition that says, for any particular project, if we don’t know what the walls are going to look like – if they’re going to be painted an ivory white or bright white or a yellow or whatever is your standard color that most of your walls are going to be done, let’s just call it Interior Default, and when you do that, you’re not declaring that it’s white or yellow or anything.  You’re just saying it’s the most common one that I’m going to use.  [0:37:12]

Now, if later on, you decide this default color is going to be a very pale blue, you don’t have to change the name, but you could change the name if you wanted to say Blue Interior Walls.  All of the elements that refer to that interior default will update.  So, we’re going to spend a little time today just looking at what that means, in terms of your organizational approach to ARCHICAD, but let’s finish up this thing of what was imported.  [0:37:48]

Just pasting in one single wall, not only did it place a wall on the plan, but even after I deleted that wall, we still had the composite, the building materials, and the surfaces that were referred to.  Now, you may – if you haven’t spent much time in Attribute Manager and the indexes, you may wonder, “Well, why is Eric pointing out that these numbers are different or in a higher range than what is in the standard file?”  [0:38:26]

When you’re bringing things in, possibly from more than one file – so, let’s say that you’re working on a new project, and you realize, “Oh, there’s a museum that I worked on last year or that the office did three years ago, and yeah, there’s some wall types in there or some building materials that were used in that context that apply to the new museum that we’re working on.”  You may want to just go grab some of the stuff, paste it in, and then just have access to those definitions of the building materials, composites, complex profiles, etc.  [0:39:03]

Maybe there’s another part – you did a restaurant, and I’m just trying to get different applications and project types. You did a restaurant, so there’s a restaurant in this new project, and you say, “Oh, in this other restaurant file, I had certain things for the kitchen, etc.,” and you bring those in. Well, if they have the same index number, potentially, when you copy and paste things in, things can get a little bit confused.  [0:39:32]

Likewise, when I’m working with MasterTemplate, I want people to be able to bring things in from the standard Graphisoft projects into a MasterTemplate environment without worrying about the index numbers, without worrying about things being redefined, or likewise going the other way – taking things from MasterTemplate out.  [0:39:55]

So, by organizing the attributes, let’s just go into the MasterTemplate sample project, and we’ll look at the Attribute Manager here, and we go to the building materials and look. The first 72 building materials came from Graphisoft, and in fact, I then aimed to get the new sets that were added in MasterTemplate to start at an even number, 101. It appears that in this sample project, there was some manipulation done that sort of got put in right after the first 72.  [0:40:46]

Now, let me just talk a tiny bit about why you need to create new definitions like this.  So, as I was working through the sections and automatic drawings that are created in the sample project, there were different issues that I worked through for how the detailed elements would intersect with each other and which had priorities, and if you had heavy framing and then lighter framing, and then you had sheathing and vertical walls sitting on top of horizontal supports and ceilings and roofs all stacked, I worked through some various issues related to the way that framing was done.  [0:41:41]

It created more framing materials.  Now, it looks like, when we have things which have a name with a 1 in parentheses after it – or sometimes you may see a 1 and then a 2 – these were definitions that were brought in at a certain point and had the same name, and ARCHICAD decided, “I’m a little unclear if they’re exactly the same.  Let me just give them a slightly different name as I import them,” so you can tell that light frame horizontal 1 and this light frame horizontal are virtually the same. [0:42:22]

They look the same.  They have the same number, etc.  If I wanted to, I could go and delete this one and say to replace it with the wood light frame – let’s go to wood, light frame, horizontal. You can see this one is grey. This is what I’m going to replace it with, and this would say that everywhere in this particular project that I had this extra one, I’m going to have it refer to this one, and I’ll do the same thing with the vertical one.  Delete this and say to replace it with the wood light frame vertical here, so that simplifies this.  [0:43:13]

Now, ultimately, we’re going to be going into some extensive detail with creating and managing building materials, complex profiles, composites, etc., but today I wanted to just point out the organizational principles, which is that you can bring in things from other files. It does carry across all of these attributes, and in general, things like building materials will also carry over the associated attributes such as the surfaces and line work.  [0:43:48]

Now, you can end up – when you’re bringing things in from another file – with a mess. You can see a little bit of a mess here. There were some duplicate building materials that I’m pretty sure were exactly the same, but they came when something was pasted in or brought in from outside.  This delete and replace option is a very powerful method to simplify, and it really is up to you.  If you say, “I know this is a duplicate,” then it’s perfectly permissible, in your file, to just delete this or even several things and say to delete all of them and have the elements that are in the model refer to the new consolidated version that you’re specifying.  [0:44:43]

The only caveats there in terms of a management perspective would be if you have favorites, these may not update to refer to the new elements.  So, you may end up with some issues that you have to clean up separately, and if you have hotlinks – other files outside – then you may have to do similar cleanup on them. Otherwise, they may still possibly refer to these redundant attribute types.  [0:45:17]

So, I think the overview here of just how these attributes relate to each other and how you can bring something in is a good beginning to developing the project framework because what you’re going to be doing, and what we’re going to be looking at in upcoming lessons is the concept of starting from something simple and developing it in more detail, as you do with any design, and starting with some general organizational principles and categories and making decisions to redefine or define and refine these categories.  [0:46:18]

So, let me give an example, then, in the case of a wall type.  So, let’s just see here.  Let’s see if we have some questions before we go on.  OK, so Taren asked, “In building materials, what does priority control?”  OK, let me answer that here rather than postpone it to where we have a more extensive study of building materials.  So, I’ll do that, and I see some questions from Chris asking about how to make flush frame doors and kitchen cabinets.  [0:47:01]

OK, so I will look at that.  You sent in that question to support, and I’ll be happy to answer that.  OK, Taren says, “I understand priority now.”  Let’s just take a brief look at this, for anyone else who’s confused here.  So, simplest thing we’re going to go in and make a wall out of a simple building material.  So, simple, composite, or complex profile.  I’ll choose simple, and let’s say that it’s going to be made of masonry, and I just draw this.  Actually, what happened there?  [0:47:54]

I thought that I had set the default here.  I’ll pick masonry there, and now when I draw a wall, it’s going to be just purely brick.  Now, if I put two brick walls passing through each other, ARCHICAD will do its best to give a clean intersection there.  Now, let’s say that I have an interior wall – actually, we’ll do a new wall, and I’m doing the interior, so we’ll pick something.  I’ll just say that it’s made out of wood here.  Obviously, walls generally are going to have assemblies of multiple components, but let’s say wood, and I pass this through like that.  [0:48:46]

You can see that the wood wall – even though in theory, it goes through it, it stops and gives way to the other element.  Now, if I select both of these, the one made out of brick and the one made out of wood, and I go to the options, building materials, we’re going to see that in the list of building materials, that the two building materials that are referred to by my selected elements are highlighted in green.  [0:49:19]

If I click on any of the other ones, you can see that both of these are in the light green, and the Wood – Structural has a priority of 647. The brick is 700, and obviously that’s higher, and the priorities – right now, we’ve got them sorted by priorities, so it’s easy to see that ones lower down on the list have a higher priority and will basically block or pass through the elements that have a lower priority.  [0:49:50]

You can sort by name, if you want to find things based on a metal or a stone, but if you sort by priority, you can look for which things are stronger versus which things are less strong, and the strongest ones are the metals, and there are some special cases of air space building materials that are designed to basically create a void, and they’re deliberately made strong enough to just cut through anything, and then there are the weakest ones such as grass and earth and water or rubber and things like that that basically, if they bump into anything else, they just stop.  [0:50:34]

So, they have the lowest priority there.  OK, so that hopefully answers that, and of course, when we have a complex situation here, then this interior framing has got lower priority than the insulated framing here.  The dry wall has lower priority than either of them, and similarly, the cladding also has different priorities, so these priorities are what allow ARCHICAD to do this on plan as well as in a section.  When you have a slab going into the wall cavity, the structural parts of the slab will take priority over the wall, the drywall, and the cladding, but other parts of the wall will have priority over the slab.  [0:51:28]

So, let’s see some other follow-up questions. Diane, “When you make changes in the Attribute Manager, does it save with the file?”  Yes, in general.  I recently made some toolbox changes that did not save, so just from a management perspective, let’s just talk a little bit about the differences between your work environment and anything related to the project because this is frequently confusing.  [0:52:03]

Under the options menu, we have a section called Work Environment, and we will spend some time looking at these features in a later part of the course, but the work environment is basically your preference for the ARCHICAD application and how it works on your computer, and it includes things like your keyboard shortcuts.  You can see down here.  So, the keyboard shortcuts are your preference for, “Hey, I hit these keys.  I want to access a certain command,” and how you have your toolbars and menus.  [0:52:41]

Now, a project that you’re working on does not depend upon which keyboard shortcuts you’re using or how you have your toolbars or menus organized. The project has elements with attributes such as building materials, and they’re on certain layers, and you have views, etc.  A project – if you hand me your project, saying, “Hey, Eric, I have a problem, or I need something done.  Can you do this for me?”  Or you hand it to a staff person, it will carry over the building – the geometry and all of the elements in it, but it won’t carry over your keyboard shortcuts.  [0:53:19]

You may prefer to use certain shortcuts, and someone else won’t be forced to use your shortcuts.  So, the work environment is on your computer whereas anything that you draw in the project, and anything you set in Attribute Manager – any of the attributes – these are in the project.  Now, of course, sometimes you want these things to move around.  So, for example, I set up some preferences on my laptop, and I want to take it to my desktop computer, so there is a way to export work environment profiles or schemes, which are parts of the profile and import them.  [0:53:58]

So, then, it’s relatively easy to say, “I want the same keyboard shortcuts on my other computer,” or even in an office, standardizing everyone using the same work environment.  Why?  Because maybe you need to sit down at someone else’s desk, and you want everyone to have a consistent environment.  Similarly, with projects, of course, you hand me your project. I get it.  If someone’s working in the metric system, it comes in with all the metric standards.  If someone from the U.S. gives me a project, it comes in with the U.S. standards, etc., but if we want to get things from one project to another, like these wall assemblies in this sample case, anything that’s predefined or been defined or even a group of elements.  [0:54:47]

You have a little – I’m just going to give something arbitrary – a ticket booth.  So, there’s a ticket booth with all sorts of stuff set up for a theater, and you want to put that into another theater and then modify it to suit.  Well, it’s a bunch of elements, and you can copy and paste it in, and they will come in with all this in general, looking much the same.  So, you can bring things in by copying and pasting.  You can also use Attribute Manager to bring in a bunch of definitions all at once.  [0:55:21]

So, that’s a way that you can bring things from one project to another, and the work environment is how ARCHICAD talks to you.  If you open up another project, you’re still going to have the same keyboard shortcuts.  OK, so I hope that answers Diane’s question.  Now, Taren asks another question related to priorities, and that is display order.  [0:55:56]

So, we’re getting into some related questions, and I don’t mind.  Let me just answer it briefly.  Display order allows you to control the graphic appearance of one element and another element in terms of their stacking order, bringing something in front or sending it behind.  That will only be effective when the elements are actually overlapping each other.  [0:56:20]

What I mean by that is if we go back to this file, and the little example that I had off to the side, if I draw a fill like this, and let’s say this fill has got a pattern or a color here.  Alright, so this fill – you can see, is behind the other elements, but it’s still the entire area that it was drawn to cover.  If I right-click and say Display Order, Bring to Front, it will come in front.  OK, that’s very easy. Let me undo that.  What if I take this wall, and I say Display Order, Bring to Front?  [0:57:19]

It does not bring it in front of the other wall because it’s already been cut by the other wall because of the building material priority.  So, the display order only will work based on what ARCHICAD is going to draw.  So, the fill was undisturbed.  It was just behind other things, whereas the wall was cutting itself, saying, “I will give way to the brick.  I will stop here and restart there.”  [0:57:49]

Now, on the other hand, if I take this, and I say Dis play Order, Send to Back, you will see that although the wall still exists here, it is now behind the fill.  So, the part of it that is showing here and on the other side went behind the fill, but it doesn’t affect how it joins up with the wall, and now there is an exception to the use of the building materials for managing these intersections.  So, let me put this back in front of the fill, and let’s look at what happens if I put it on a different layer.  [0:58:36]

So, I didn’t change the layer when I drew it.  It was still on the layer called Wall Exterior, and let me put it on my Wall Partition. OK, there’s no change here.  I’m going to go into the layer settings by hitting Command+L or Ctrl+L, and I’ll go to the wall partition, and you can see this has a number 1.  This is the layer intersection group.  Most of the layers are set to be number 1.  That means if you have walls on different layers, but they’re on that standard group 1, they will pay attention to each other. They will look at the building materials and join or give way as appropriate.  [0:59:24]

You notice this one that says Wall Special that’s on 7?  That’s actually defined in this template to be a layer already available that you can put walls on, but you don’t want it to intersect the other walls.  So, while I could change the interior one to something else, I will just use the special one and say, “What if I change this to Wall Special?”  [0:59:56]

Now, these 2 walls are ignoring each other, and in fact, I can now – if I wanted to, go to the display order, bring this one to the front here.  Actually, that’s interesting.  So, Display Order, Bring to Front.  Maybe that’s already at the top. Let’s see if we do this one, and we say Display Order, Send Backward. There we go.  OK, so I couldn’t bring the vertical wall to the front of it because they were both at the front. So, there’s a limited number of stacking positions, and they were both at 15, the highest priority.  I think that’s the number.  [1:00:46]

In any event, why would you use this layer intersection group option to control things?  Well, let’s do a slightly different thing.  Let’s take this wall and put it where it’s stopping right next to the other wall, and I’ll put this on the partition – I’m sorry, the special layer.  You can see the line that gets shown here.  So, if 2 walls are on either the same layer or layers with the same layer intersection group, then they will attempt to clean up to each other.  Building materials will be used, etc., and you will remove lines where things are made out of the same building material.  [1:01:35]

It’s saying, “Well, it’s all brick here.  We’ll just leave the line out where it turns a corner,” which is good most of the time, but occasionally you have things like walls for a balcony outside the building or for a garden – retaining walls, etc., and the main wall – the structural wall – is passing through undisturbed. It has, in fact, maybe all of its cladding going through that area, and the other one is just stopping dead, and so by putting this on another layer that is deliberately set not to intersect, then you can have that there, whether it is the same material – the masonry brick – or something else like this.  [1:02:25]

It’ll still just ignore each other.  Alright, so that’s a little clarification on the relationship between display order and intersection groups and building material priorities, and hopefully that explains some mysteries for some of you.  Now, the main time you use display order is when you have graphic things like fills.  Maybe you have something that is hidden by something else, and you want to bring it to the front, and occasionally, for things like furniture.  [1:03:02]

If you think about the classic case of having a table and some chairs around the table, and the chairs are slid partially underneath the table, you generally want the table to be displayed on top of the chairs so that it does not look odd, as if the chair was sitting up in the air.  So, it would be a classic case.  Sometimes, that may be for cabinets or casework or things where you have stacked shelves, and you want the upper shelf – the line of the upper shelf to show on top of a lower shelf.  So, you’re basically telling ARCHICAD visually how you want it to be stacked.  [1:03:46]

OK, so Taren thanks me for explaining the layer group. It’s the layer intersection group and the exception to the building material priority display calculation – a wordy way of saying that normally, or most commonly, things will calculate which elements join and which ones give way, based on building materials, but you can sidestep that if you need to.  [1:04:35]

So, Kies asked, “What about demolished walls causing gaps in existing walls, even when they are on hidden layers?”  OK, so all good related questions.  Let’s just give you some answers there.  Let’s say that this wall here – let me undo back here.  OK, so now these 2 walls, as we can see the line here. This is on the exterior wall layer.  Let me put it on the partition layer here.  [1:05:15]

For now, I’ll just put it on another layer, and I’m going to designate this in the demo context.  Let’s see – renovation. Let’s see. We’re going to say that this is going to be demo.  Now, when I had that wall selected, and I made it a demo by designating it this way, it disappeared because our current filter says to just show me the planned result at the end of the process after everything is demolished that needs to be demolished and everything that’s new has been added.  [1:05:56]

If I go back to existing plan, we’re going to see this shows up because it is there at the beginning.  So, with the renovation filters, it works beautifully.  With the demolition plan, it’s going to show this in an overwritten fashion.  So, we can see it’s dashed, indicating it’s going to be taken out, and of course, in the plan status, it’s going to be showing with no break in that line.  [1:06:26]

This is one reason why the renovation filters work better than layer management for traditional remodel projects because it automatically does this sort of thing. Now, let’s just look at an existing plan here, where these are connected, and let’s use a different approach, which would be the much-older way of doing things for renovation, where you have a layer for demo purposes.  So, this element is on the wall partition list.  Let’s just imagine that wall partition layer is actually a layer for demo partitions or demo elements, and if I go to the layer settings, and I just manually go to the wall partition and say to hide this – so, I’m just going to say to hide it, so it’s gone.  [1:07:17]

I say OK, and you can see that we have the issue that Kies asks about, which is that this has been taken out as if it was demolished, and yet we have this gap, which does not look correct.  So, how would you deal with it?  If you don’t want to do the renovation filter, or there are limitations to that, then what you need to do is to say, in any particular layer combination. Let’s just say this is the floor plan here, and let’s say this is the Floor Plan New, or I’ll create a new layer combination that says ConDoc Floor Plan New.  [1:08:02]

Alright, so now, this is going to be a variation of the one that I had there, and in the Floor Plan New, I’m going to turn off the partition, and I’m going to change the number.  Remember, if I change the number, it will no longer intersect.  So, I’ll just put in like 19.  I’m going to pick an arbitrary number that’s not the same as any of the other ones here.  Then, the stuff that’s on this layer that is hidden will not intersect.  [1:08:32]

So, now I say OK, and you’ll see this heals.  If I go back to the – oh, I think I didn’t update that.  So, Floor Plan New, say partition, hide it, change the number, and update this.  So, now this one is remembering that.  So, now this fixes the issue here.  If I switch it back to the other one, the ConDoc Floor Plan, then we can see that this is visible, and it opens up the line.  So, when you hide certain layers, if it’s something that you’re going to be using for a working drawing, you may need to create a layer combination where those layers are hidden, and the hidden layer’s on a different priority group, layer intersection group.  [1:09:24]

So, hopefully that answers that question from Kies.  OK, so we’re at an hour and a quarter, and I think – let me look at my notes here and see. We certainly covered some additional things that weren’t in my original notes, which is fine.  So, we’re looking at how these are referred to.  So, let’s talk a little bit about index numbers and then the iterative development here.  Hopefully, I can get this done in the next 15 minutes so we can keep this at 90 minutes overall.  [1:10:06]

So, if I go to change the name – remember, I had this element here on the wall partition. We said, “Oh, you know what?  Let’s just use that layer for something else.”  So, I’m going to go into the Layer dialog, and I’ll say the wall partition, and I’m just going to say, “No, this is Wall Demo.”  So, I’m changing the name.  Now, this layer actually has an index number internally. We don’t see it here.  It’s not really featured, but I can change the name.  Nothing changed here, but if I select the element, it says it’s on the Wall demo layer.  [1:10:54]

So, basically, the element just looks and says, “I’m on layer 38,” whatever that number is, and then when you go to the pop-up menu, or you open up the settings, it says, “I’m on the layer Wall Demo.”  It just shows you whatever is the current name of it.  No change in any other operation. The layer combinations work the same. We’re just changing that definition.  [1:11:19]

Now, same way masonry brick here.  If I go to the options, building materials, whether I have something selected here or not, if I go to masonry brick and rename it Masonry Brick New – so, I’ve just changed the name a little bit.  I could change it bigger, but I’m just going to leave it almost the same.  Now, you can see it says, “Oh, it’s Masonry Brick New.”  So, changing the name of attributes such as the building material, the composite, the complex profile, the surface, the layer, the line type – all of these.  You can freely change the names.  [1:12:06]

Now, where you’re going to get in trouble is in the view settings.  So, for example, remember this layer combination ConDoc Floor Plan New?  Alright, so let’s create a view. I’m going to go, and we’re in ConDoc Floor Plan New – this one, and then I go and say to save this view, and we’ll just call it test view here, and here is the layer combination, and that view shows up at the bottom here.  [1:12:48]

Now, everything is fine.  At some point, I go in and say, “You know what?  This ConDoc Floor Plan New really shouldn’t be that.  It should be ConDoc Floor Plan Test For presentation” – whatever it is, you’re just changing the name because it makes more sense in the context.  So, fine, I select that.  It shows up in the pop-up menu here, but look at the settings. When I go to the settings here, it says that the layer combination is missing.  [1:13:22]

It still remembers what layers were turned on or off, but it doesn’t know the layer combination, and why is that an issue?  Because if, as I’m developing my standards in the project, I then redefine that layer combination to change certain things, or I bring in new layers to the project environment, this missing layer combination doesn’t know what to do with it.  [1:13:53]

So, the new layers would be hidden, even if you wanted them to be on.  You’d have to go and redefine it and say, “Oh, here’s the name of the layer combination that I now want to use.”  If you’re referring to a layer combination here, and you redefine that layer combination to have somewhat different settings, hide certain layers, or change the priorities and deal with new layers you’ve added, then this view will use the layer combination and just stay up to date.  So, in general, it’s problematic if you change the names of any of these things here in the view settings.  So, layer combination, the definitions of the scale.  [1:14:43]

Well, actually, scale is just numeric, I think, but the dimensioning standards, the model view options – all of these things here.  If you change the name of them in their definition, then the views that refer to those names will show missing.  Again, it won’t make your project explode.  It won’t even make the drawings on the sheet look any different, but you will not have control, and you will not be able to easily update the settings of these views based on revising the layer combination or any of these other things.  Now, let me just cancel this here and see.  [1:15:37]

I think I’ve still got it with the issue.  Yeah, it’s the missing one, and let’s look at a management tool that can be very helpful.  It’s a report under the – if you look in the project map, we have all of our model and documentation folders, and then we have the schedules, where we’re listing reports of windows, doors, appliances, finish schedules, etc.  Then, we have project indexes which sometimes people get confused because it is also a report, but project indexes are reporting on organizational things within the project, such as the list of sheets.  [1:16:26]

Very common. You want to put a list of all the drawing sheets and their numbers and names on the title page, etc.  You can also have a report that is a list of views, and so if I go to the settings for this, this view list is built in here under views.  Now, if you didn’t want to create a new one, you can say that it’s one of these different choices.  Remember, these are reports of internal structural things, like a report of all the layouts. That would be a drawing list or a sheet list.  [1:17:07]

A list of all the drawings is for management purposes.  Usually, you don’t put that on a sheet.  Same thing with views.  So, this one – if we didn’t have it built in, you could create this.  The one that’s built in here to MasterTemplate, and I think there’s a similar one in the standard Graphisoft templates. It has a list of all the views in a project.  Now, I’ll just cancel out of it because I don’t need to redefine it, but I’ll just double-click on it.  [1:17:33]

So, let’s look briefly at the list of views, and what you’ll see here is that for each one of these views in the View Map here, we’re seeing some ID because some of the views in the View Map have IDs before them.  All of them have a name.  Most of them will have dimensions, in terms of are you dimensioning down to the 16^th of an inch or down to the millimeter or the 8^th of an inch or whatever. The ones that are relevant will have the model view option graphic override pen set, etc.  These are all the things that you control in view settings.  [1:18:21]

Now, if we look at the – we change the layer combination here, and I scroll down through this.  Maybe it’s going to be at the bottom.  Let’s see.  Layer combination – there should be at least one that’s missing here, and that’s what I wanted to point out.  So, let’s see if I can find it.  I guess if I sort – here it is.  Missing. OK, so this is a management tool that can facilitate finding issues with your project structure.  By having this view list, you can go scan it, and you can sort – for example, I think I can sort by layer combination if I click – let’s see.  [1:19:29]

Layer combination. I guess, in the index settings, if I want to sort temporarily by – maybe I realize there’s some issue with layer combinations.  I can sort by layer combination by moving it.  Maybe we don’t even have to move it.  I think if I use the sort button here, click on that, this will now sort by layer combination.  We say OK, and it will come back up here, and here’s the layer combination.  So, we can just scan through this, and these are all sorted, and let’s see where that missing one was.  [1:20:14]

Here’s a custom one. That one catches my eye because it’s a layer combination for that particular view that is not linked to a named combination, and let’s see. We had missing here. You can see it stands out separate from the other ones that are all the same.  So, when you use this management tool, you can go in here and say, “You know what? Actually, this really shouldn’t be.”  What was it originally? If I make this wider, I can see the name of it.  ConDoc Floor Plan.  I can make it wide enough that I can see what the name was, and I say, “Oh, yeah, right. That one should actually be ConDoc Floor Plan Test for Presentation.”  [1:21:09]

That’s right. I changed that name.  OK, and now that particular issue goes away.  So, this is a way of auditing your file.  I used this extensively when I was creating MasterTemplate to just make sure that all of these things made sense from a high level.  Everything is organized properly. Now, getting back to the project concept, we’re going to be looking in the next lesson or one of the next lessons at the idea of having a generic name that you develop through the course of a project, and I’ll just give you a quick example here.  [1:22:05]

If we define under the options menu composites, and let me pick just a generic one here.  OK, so this is a generic wall that came from the standard U.S. template.  It has a generic skin for the exterior and a generic interior.  You can see the skin is thinner than the body of the wall here. Let me go and create a new one that’s similar to that, and we’ll just call this Wall Type 1 and say OK.  [1:22:51]

So, now Wall Type 1 actually started.  I didn’t say to duplicate it. I just created a new one.  Let’s just say that it’s going to be done with air space. Actually, it’s probably better to use generic building material.  So, this is going to be a wall with whatever thickness. Let’s just say 8 inches, which would be a fifth of a meter or about 200 millimeters, roughly.  So, we’re going to say this is a Wall Type 1, and I’ll draw a box with a composite here that I just defined, and I’ll just use Wall Type 1.  [1:23:39]

We’ll just draw a box for simplicity here.  Alright, so when you’re starting to create your building, you may not know exactly how you’re going to define the wall assemblies, but you know that we’re going to have this part of the building with one type of wall, and that part of the building with a different type of wall, and maybe there’s a third type of wall, and then, of course, interior. Maybe there are other ones.  [1:24:07]

So, you divide up your thinking in terms of several types. Now, this Wall Type 1 – if I later go in and say Options, Composite, or I even select this wall type here and go right-click and say to edit selected composite profile, I can say that this is going to be made of – oh, we’re going to insert a skin here. This outside is going to be some stucco or something like that.  Where is it?  [1:24:43]

I’ll just call it a non-structural concrete on the outside, and on the inside, we’re going to have some framing here, so I’ll just do some wood structural insulated.  Alright, so now I’m defining that this Wall Type 1 has some extra information, and let’s make this outside thinner here.  So, now it’s a little bit thicker of a wall there. I say OK, and what happened is you can see all of those walls update automatically to that, and if I go in and say that I wanted to redefine that composite Wall Type 1 or even rename it, we’ll just call it Wall X here.  [1:25:36]

It’s basically these walls here.  Now, let’s say Wall X.  So, the idea here, just on a very quick conceptual note, is that if you define things based on function or category and then intelligently go redefine or refine the category – the type of element, then all the elements that you’ve drawn that refer to that category – that type of wall, that wall assembly, will update.  [1:26:11]

So, think about how powerful that is when you’re in the early stages.  You don’t really want to define everything very precisely. You may have a pretty good idea of it, but maybe you don’t want the client to think you’ve already worked everything out.  So, you may say, “Well, there’s probably going to be this type of wall,” and you figure out it’s 10 ½ inches thick, or 225 millimeters, or whatever it is, and you say, “Alright, let’s just do that. We’ll give it a name,” and then later you come back in, and you decide the details of it.  [1:26:44]

Later, you’d make another change and say, “Oh, we forgot to define the interior skin. We’re going to have to insert a skin down here.  Actually, I’ll remove that skin.  We’re going to – I guess if I highlight this and insert the skin below that, we’re going to make this have the dry wall.  Where is that?  Getting a little tired here.  It’s gypsum board.  OK, where is it?  Gypsum board there, and we’ll make this 5/8 or something like that.  [1:27:28]

OK, so now this Wall X has that additional thing.  So, now it’s got that skin there. So, we’re basically able to iteratively refine.  So, instead of saying these walls are made of this composite and all this detail and then saying, “Oh, we’ve changed it,” and having to select them all and change their settings, we simply redefine the reference.  So, this is part of our organizational leverage that ARCHICAD gives every one of us in working on a project is that you can define your intent and then have ARCHICAD work with that.  [1:28:14]

My intent here is these walls are this type.  I don’t know exactly what they’re going to look like, but my intent is that they’re one type as opposed to other walls, which are different.  Alright, let’s see if there are any questions here.  I’ll just bring this back on screen because this is my tip that I put at the end of the list, thinking about types of elements and the redefine them as you develop your design here.  [1:28:43]

OK, so Roger says, “How do I make the composite wall skin stretch to cover the joist?”  How do you make the composite wall skin stretch to cover the joist?  So, I think you’re referring to the cladding to go down in the face of the wall over the top of the slab and the joists underneath.  Is that?  He’s saying yes, so when we’re working in the section, you can just pull the wall down, and if you’ve got your building material priorities where the joist or the floor – the joist space has a higher priority, then the wall will stop. The vertical framing has a lower priority, and it will stop, but the cladding can come down, and you basically are going to take your slab to the face of the framing, which means that the cladding has nothing blocking it from going down.  [1:29:57]

So this is something we can look at in more detail in a coaching call, and of course, I will be talking about how to create clean sections, how to create the model so that you actually get a beautifully-defined drawing directly from the model with a minimum of cleanup and manual work. So, Andy says, “I’ve moved out of the utility room.”  [1:30:29]

Yes, I have, and if you want to look here, this is still the same room.  So, this is my office.  This is where I work, and if you want to see out my window here, let’s see. This is my back yard. Let’s see if I can get this to look there.  Alright, so let’s see. We have some lovely foliage, and this is where I look out all day while I’m working.  [1:31:08]

So, it’s not a view of the ocean, but it’s a sweet little back yard, and my wife has done a great job with landscaping and little statues and things like that.  Alright, so where is the beach, Scott?  I don’t know.  You’re the one that gets to the beach more often, but in Marin County, where I live, about half an hour from here, we sometimes go to the ocean, and it’s usually sort of rough surf, and you don’t swim near us, and it’s not warm. Even in the summer, it’s not really warm enough to swim that comfortably, but we love the ocean, and we love the beach.  [1:31:57]

Alright, so thank you all for joining me today. We’ll be making a transition, I think, maybe in the next class, to building some things together and looking at the process of schematic design and defining spaces for program requirements. We’ll be looking at the types of working methods that will give you the clean results in terms of elevations and sections and plans and similar, so we’ll be moving from the foundation organizational principles to some of more of the operational rules and methods that I think you’re going to enjoy.  [1:32:50]

So, please give some feedback in the feedback channel here, how you find the course so far, and of course, send in your questions to support@bobrow.com, and I look forward to seeing some of you tomorrow at the coaching call or at future coaching sessions.  So, it’s been my pleasure to share this with you. Thanks for watching.  [1:33:17]