Product In-Depth: A Focus on Workflow in ARCHICAD 21

Typically in our In-Depths on ARCHICAD, we present as many of the key features as possible. Most of the time that is the best strategy. However, as the company emphasized several times at introduction, AC 21—that’s shorthand for ARCHICAD 21—is very much about improvements to the workflow as a whole than about the actual features as separate parts in the workflow puzzle. To that end, we are going to limit our scope in terms of features and delve into major workflow segments instead as they relate to contemporary architectural practice and where the future of practice is headed.

GRAPHISOFT’s Eniko Pauko, an architect by training and profession, has taken extensive time to review the major workflow improvements. She starts the session by saying, “We want to make our users more productive…so their success is our success.”

Leading Edge and Future Edge Designers—They Start with Algorithmic Design

When it comes to success in today’s more global, more competitive, and arguably more demanding architectural market, leading firms are without a doubt embracing new digital tools that help them stand apart from their competition. A key component of these new types of digital tools is algorithmic design.

To address this changing trend among architects, GRAPHISOFT established a pivotal partnership with the industry-leading algorithmic design software maker, McNeel & Associates of Seattle, Washington, the makers of the phenomenally popular Rhinoceros 3D software package with its side-kick algorithmic design tool, Grasshopper (GH). This partnership began a few years ago and culminated in the 2015 beta release of what is now known as the Rhino-Grasshopper-ARCHICAD (RGA) Toolset. A little over a year later the RGA Connection was also running fully on Mac.

So let’s talk about what is new with the RGA Toolkit. Eniko emphasized that the RGA is helping to bring a deeper integration between conceptual design and the BIM process itself. One way of accomplishing this was to add support for AC zones into the RGA, thus enabling GH nodes to control AC zone elements. “From Grasshopper we can control parameters in the zones such as building program functions and the location of zones across building floors,” says Eniko. (image 01 – 02)

By adding ARCHICAD zones users can check square footage requirements by zone while manipulating algorithmic scripts that drive the overall shape of the building, thereby adding validation of program elements at the earliest stages of the design process and to computationally time-consuming shapes. (image 03) Imagine the difficulty architects would face when working with a shape like the sculptural tower shown in the images above if every change in shape would require more manual or semi-manual arithmetic work to validate figures. (images 01 – 04)

As shown in images 01 – 03, the RGA Toolkit adds ARCHICAD based nodes to Grasshopper. Complete BIM elements can be driven via GS in algorithmic scripts so there is literally no need to generate algorithmic models in Rhino first and then push to ARCHICAD. Part of the Toolkit does, of course, support a direct model exchange between Rhino and ARCHICAD. Also, the RGA Toolkit includes a Rhino to GDL Converter which enables the creation of native ARCHICAD objects from Rhino. That means highly experienced Rhino modelers can produce nearly any object imaginable using the superior Class-A NURBS based Rhino 3D and then turn it into a GDL-based native AC object.

The next item added to the RGA Toolkit’s capabilities in version 21 is adding support for ARCHICAD Favorites. This means that inside Grasshopper the user can work with saved favorites such as slabs to create more realistic building element conditions as part of the early schematic design work. (image 05) Staying completely in Grasshopper (GH), architects can evolve building designs, adding iteration over iteration while advancing the level of detail via trading up to more detailed components saved as Favorites in ARCHICAD. This process empowers design by automating complex modeling while staying with the fluidity of an investigative and exploratory algorithmic design cycle. (image 06 – 7)

Speaking of a design cycle. Another new feature is something called “bake true copy.” Eniko explains. “It creates a detached copy of the model but you can still stay in the same file. You can make several different models and see them side by side in the project,” she adds, “and go with the one you like most.”

Summarizing the Workflow Impact

The RGA Toolkit is centered on the live, bi-directional Grasshopper-ARCHICAD connection. This fundamentally alters the architectural workflow landscape by allowing architects to initiate schematic design in Grasshopper while empowering the process through data-driven design concepts. The first step is controlling zones and their parameters but I can envision further steps including control over building elements that may impact energy and daylight.

Indeed, Eniko stated, “we have exciting new developments for the Grasshopper-ARCHICAD connection. Algorithmic design is one of the core activities that high-end design firms do. They don’t stick to traditional design methods; they are doing new things and we want to support them. That is why we decided to collaborate with the best-in-breed tools for this kind of design thinking…why we partnered with McNeel.”

next page: Predictive Design—The New Stair and Railings Tool

Predictive Design—The New Stair and Railings Tools

ARCHICAD 21’s new patent-pending “predictive design” technology plays out in the new stair and railings tools. This is without a doubt the “hero feature” in this particular new release of the BIM software, as evidenced by the remarkable stair shown on the software box and marketing imagery.

To start explaining this new technology to me Eniko made reference to the famous architectural reference manual, “Neufert Architects’ Data” a large volume of building design data standards more popular in Europe than in the United States but nonetheless well known in the American markets as well. “It is the bible of designing stairs and railings [in Europe],” says Eniko. “With stair design being so complex and required to fulfill so many requirements, we felt that we needed to provide some workflow that automates the manual calculation parts of stair design.”

Architects must balance the number of treads and risers with the depth of treads versus the depths of available stair run dimensions. The whole process of stair design has grown beyond the geometry “fit” of placing a stair into a particular space and has to deal with numerous ergonomic standards and legal code requirements for life safety too. “Since we are all about the workflow,” adds Eniko, “we created an algorithm that does all the calculation work in the background while keeping to the standards, so the architect can play freely with the stair’s design, shape, and positioning without worrying about standards.” (images 08 – 09)

If GRAPHISOFT accomplished this, including the automation of the associated railing design, just for all manner of rectangular and common circular stairs, such a thing would be quite an accomplishment. But the company set the bar much higher. “The preparation of the new stair technology started six years ago,” says Eniko, “we connected with lots of our users and worked through case studies and various practices to ensure that the stair tool we developed worked exactly as they wanted.”

The new stair tool is so flexible in ARCHICAD 21 that architects are capable of designing stairs in extremely complex form and with unusual shapes (images 15 – 16 below) while maintaining conformity to standards, over which, the user has full editing control. The company believes this is the first practical application of AI (artificial intelligence) in design by a BIM software package, and hence they are protecting it with a patent application.

Digging in deeper Eniko stated that the stairs are “smart elements” that use rules to govern what the user can do with them; they are intelligent associative collections of elements so that when the plan moves the railings move with it. They are “story sensitive” and linked to stories so when the building floors move higher or lower they configure automatically. lf the rules double-bind the current design and the stair is not resolvable then the stair is automatically highlighted in a pink color, alerting the designer to the problem. (images 10 – 11)

Regarding the editable standards and rules, the “Predictive-Design” algorithms work in a way where the architect has full control over setting these standards. This happens in the Rules & Standards section of the Stair Selection Settings dialog palette. The user can input both minimum and maximum riser heights, tread depths, combination 2R+1T dimension limitations, riser to tread ratios, riser plus tread sum limitations, actual stair pitch angles and the distances for automatic placement of landings as required by standards and building codes. There is also walking line calculations for stair winders and tapered tread minimum distances. (see image 09)

“The goal is not to over-do the rules,” says Eniko, “but to use the combination of rules and standards that are applicable in your country.”

One of the more impressive aspects about the new stair tool in version 21 is that when you give the Rules & Standards section data and you provide healthy ranges in terms of minimum and maximum distances, you give the stair tool highly flexible capacity for making stairs fit neatly into various plan constraints. Some architects try to always hit a precise dimension for say, riser heights. But as witnessed during the Kyoto World Premier event, the intelligent algorithm lets the user simply slide the cursor backward or forward—and with a visual preview—to get the stairs to conform to plan constraints while simultaneously meeting code and standards.

Probably the most common challenge architects often face is designing a stair within the smallest available plan area. How do you put the stair in the most compact space possible? This age-old challenge is attacked directly with version 21’s “stair solver” technology—essentially a palette that reveals eligible conforming stair arrangements that the user can choose from based on the attempted stair layout. (see image 12) While the user was attempting a very tight stair that did not resolve due to constraints, ARCHICAD 21 in the background was analyzing perhaps hundreds if not thousands of variations. Also, for veteran users they will find it helpful to know that the Magic Wand tool in ARCHICAD works with the new stair tools as well, grafting a stair automatically to a given wall element, for example.

While all of this technology is impressive by itself, as an architect I was pleased to see that GRAPHISOFT enabled a schematic-level view option for working with stairs. That is, we can just view the stair tool functioning with just using surfaces for the model only. (image 13 – 14) The default color of these surfaces is blue glass, but users can change it per their taste to fit the design, like this bright pumpkin orange. Explaining the company’s thinking Eniko says, “this is useful because in competition drawings and sketches all we can see is the stair surface. In the early phases…you want to show the concept, not the details.” Both the stair and the railing tools have detailed and schematic view optionality.

To demonstrate just how powerful the new stair tool is Eniko brought up an example of an organic-formed stair without risers but with trends. (images 15 – 16) This artful stair floats from the ceiling above. “This one is special because there is no structure for the stair,” says Eniko, “the treads themselves define the stair.” The method of making this stair is to convert each tread element into a “morph” object. “With a morph element you can do any modeling or additive methods you want,” she adds. Once the modeling operation is over, you convert it back to a stair element. “It is important that this is an integrated stair not a collection of elements,” says Eniko.

I asked Eniko to show me how the documentation changes if small changes were to happen to this advanced and organic stair. I correctly assumed that if the floor levels changed the algorithms would modify the stair to meet compliance. What was impressive was how the documentation would change with associative dimensions automatically adjusting even if small items like the radii of curves changed. (image 17)

The new Railing tools work with the same patent-pending predictive technology. “Because the railing is associative it goes everywhere the original geometry goes,” says Eniko. Similar to stairs the railings have sub-elements, including general offsets from the source geometry that the algorithmic technology is deriving and fitting to the railings. I was intrigued to learn you can use any profile for a handrail that is stored in ARCHICAD 21. (images 18 – 21)

Stair rail segments include a top rail, handrails, rails, inner posts, balusters, panels, nodes, posts, connections and end conditions. The controls for each are extensive and flexible. Within the Railing Selection Settings dialog palette, you can visually preview the positioning of various elements—so you can see where a handrail is relative to a top rail, visually. (images 20 – 21)

Developing both stairs and railings can consist of extensive settings, so GRAPHISOFT allowed each to be saved as Favorites. Now users can simply pull up their favorite stair and railing designs for reuse in other projects or as the basis for a quick design derivation. Towards the end, Eniko showed me the extensive array of stair accessories you can input into your stair design, including anti-slip elements, structural plates for connections off of steel stair structures, et cetera.

Summarizing the Workflow Impact

The new “predictive-design” technology is extensive in ARCHICAD 21. The company has completely tackled the hardest workflow aspects of designing stairs in both common rectangular plan formation, angular and circular formation, and in much more advanced organic shape formation, right down to the level of using Morph objects to deform common stair elements in truly remarkable ways. Having the freedom to layout stairs without having to worry about code requirements—because those are now built in and already vetted as part of the inputs—allows designers a faster, more seamless workflow for stair design.

The new Railing tool allows other objects to be used as a post element, like a street lamp. As such, it can be used independently to layout site elements along a path, like landscape light bollards. After thoroughly reviewing and discussing the stair and railing tools with Eniko I couldn’t come up with any need that hasn’t been addressed by version 21’s new tools. I’m sure however that there are refinement potentials that users will discover after some use.

next page: Open BIM Advances—New IFC Hotlinking

Open BIM Advances—New IFC Hotlinking

This is the third major area we want to review as part of enhanced workflows in version 21. After the impressive new Predictive Design technologies, these next items are not as sexy but very important to streamlining workflows by reducing the friction between various steps in the process, or by eliminating steps in the process altogether.

We should start this section by hearing what Eniko had to say about Open BIM. When referring to this image presented below, Eniko says, “It is just not possible for any one company to provide all the tools needed to serve the industry well and the process works best when everyone can use the same data for reference.”

“If you consider Autodesk and Revit where one software was trying to serve the whole process, ten years ago they were just not that interested in Open BIM,” adds Eniko, “and now they have changed their heart and taken up the flag of Open BIM and saying how important it is.” Indeed, Architosh has already noted this change in recent reports directly from talking to Autodesk about the AEC industry.

The industry problem Open BIM solves so much better than one company can ever hope to solve is it makes it possible for local tools to cover standards and requirements for their country far better than any universal global BIM player can ever do. “If you just think about your own country versus other countries and the standards for practice are just so different,” she adds. (image 22)

“We believe in connecting the best local solutions to Open BIM and this is the best strategy anyone can have. Open BIM is the future of data exchange in the industry.”

In taking a look at the image above, American and European readers may not even know about tools like the excellent Japanese Rebro, an MEP BIM package that is quite a hot up-and-comer in the industry. (image 22) Architosh wrote about it here. There are so many specialized BIM tools that need to address markets far and wide. In many cases the best tools for specific markets are home-grown. I asked Eniko about the status of local solutions with regard to any trends.

“I see two trends when visiting countries,” she says. “One trend is vendors who disregard the Open BIM direction tend to disappear—they cannot stay competitive anymore. The other trend is applications embracing Open BIM compete better and have bigger market shares in other countries. It’s getting more global and people are interested in finding the best solution and if the best solution is not next door they will buy it from outside their country.”

Against this background on the positive trending status of Open BIM, GRAPHISOFT has added new IFC hotlinking capabilities to AC 21. (image 23) It manages how IFC files are connected and put to use in the version 21 BIM environment. “Before you imported the IFC models in separate files instead,” says Eniko, “and to update that data with another IFC file you needed to first get rid of the content from the former version of the IFC model and update the content of the additional file.” She explains that was a very time-consuming process.

Now via the HotLink Manager, users can link and “Relink” IFC files. (image 23) “When the next update to the MEP model is sent my way,” says Eniko, “I select it here, I say Relink the file and the data model from the previous version is replaced by the new version.” In the sample file shown above you can see there are three (3) Hotlink Sources shown in the HotLink Manager dialog palette. One is about structure, the other about MEP and the last about the site. (image 23) When one of these files is updated, the changes in the IFC linked file are automatically carried through to the host AC file once the Update button is selected within the HotLink Manager dialog.

Summarizing the Workflow Impact

Eniko emphasized that the workflow impact increases with the scale and complexity of projects. Eniko also noted that BIM managers often had to deal with this process in a much more time-consuming way, including more time-intensive file management processes to keep track of IFC data flows for data coming in and out into the host BIM file.

next page: Furthering BIM Advancements—Classification System and Clash Detection

Furthering BIM Advancements—Classification System and Clash Detection

One of the more intriguing moments in Eniko’s walk-through of ARCHICAD 21’s features was when she showed me the foundation for the Graphisoft Park Headquarters building. (image 24 below) I’ve explored this model directly in earlier reviews but I never knew that the entire foundation consisted of various types of ARCHICAD 21 BIM model element (or building object) types. Eniko explains. “Architects are some of the most creative people on the planet and we tell our users that our modeling tools are versatile and to use the tool that works best for the job.” In this case, the foundation model at the GSP headquarters is made up of elements that were made with the wall tool, the slab tool, beams and some morphs. “It is a mixed set of elements,” adds Eniko.

I asked, why not just create a generic modeling tool that can do everything? She said GRAPHISOFT could do that. However, unlike product design applications architects are already working with specific types of elements like beams and slabs, so she summed up by saying this is a middle way approach—in other words, that these specific tools being named one thing doesn’t mean the element you create with them ends up being that thing by name.

What we are talking about then is a classification system. While various BIM element tools may have made up the geometry for the foundation shown above, the classification system can quickly assign all those elements to the “Foundation” classification. (image 24) You can edit one element at a time and change its classification (image 25) or by selection sets. (image 26) You can see in image 24 that the selected elements in the foundation view consist of x number of walls, columns, beams, and morphs.

Properties, which were advanced in ARCHICAD 20, can be made available to specific classification definitions. For example, under the ARCHICAD Classification 21 schema we have Openings, then Door, and the properties available for the selected classification of “Door” can be either All, None, or Custom. (image 26)

I asked Eniko if it was possible to have more than one classification system on a project working at the same time. She said yes. “Sometimes different disciplines communicate using different standards, so one engineer may use one classification system while a second engineer uses another. This enables you to exchange data between these parties without having to change the elements.”

So, in summary, the new classification system is a mapping system that enables the accurate transfer of information between BIM applications. And GRAPHISOFT made it easy for users to access standard classification systems from a website that list all the available classification systems. Additionally, in version 21 the new IFC translator dialog improves the process of IFC import and export workflows. (image 27)

Clash Detection

Finally, we want to talk about the new collision detection features. Although ARCHICAD 21 users may use tools like Solibri Model Checker for collision detection and much more, the company has built an onboard collision detection system. It works by comparing elements between two groups. First, it isolates elements based on specific criteria and then compares them geometrically and spatially to see if one element from one group is in the same geometry space as another element in the other group. (image 28 – 29)

If such an element is found it is turned purple in the model. (image 30) A window called Collision Detection Report pops up and list the elements in each group and lists the number of collisions and new markup entries. (image 29) Importantly, you can save checked groups, like MEP versus Foundation, or MEP versus Structural. This makes checking for collisions faster in future work.

The Markup Tool also lists clashes and enables the user to create comments, capture an image, and add annotations. “You can save that as a BCF file as well,” adds Eniko.

Summarizing the Workflow Impact

It appears that the built-in collision detection tool is a way to empower the support of the BCF file format and process natively within ARCHICAD 21. It does not appear to negate the use of tools like Solibri which do far more than clash detection. The new classification system both streamlines data exchange via IFC and better prepares version 21 users to adopt and support country-based classification BIM standards. It also empowers filtering operations.

Closing Comments

ARCHICAD 21 is packed with much more than just these four main feature areas. But we wanted to dive deeper than just a high-level summary of what these features are. What we learned is that the Hungarian BIM maker is clearly “the standard-bearer”—to borrow Eniko’s expression—in delivering a software tool that enables cutting-edge design firms to bring algorithmically derived building designs into a BIM software package earlier in the process; data aspects of the design process, perhaps best located within the overall process inside the main BIM authoring tool, are now pushed to the front of the schematic process through the new zoning node in the RGA Toolkit.

The fact that BIM documentation can be created and that algorithmic design work in Grasshopper can still affect the building and ripple through the documentation—which could be far advanced—is quite game-changing.

What we see is that designers can quickly test new complex forms while simultaneously keeping tabs on programmatic square feet allocations. This work could be done entirely inside Rhino and Grasshopper alone but by bringing this work into ARCHICAD directly and being driven by the RGA Toolkit’s capabilities, it means that the algorithmic engine can stay attached to the process longer.

We also learn that the new stair and railing tools were started six years ago, suggesting a significant investment in R&D to bring those patent-pending technologies to light. The new BIM-centric advancements in collision detection, BCF markup, the all-new classification system, and the new IFC Hotlinks technology all empower the overall BIM process and in many cases dramatically streamline workflows by an order of magnitude. In this regard, the IFC Hotlinks update seems to shine the most.

There are many other excellent new features in ARCHICAD 21, and some of these also have a significant impact on common workflows. Two stand out in my mind. The first is the new Transfer Settings features. This uses the eyedropper tool to copy settings from one element to another element in the BIM model. A door to a door is a good example. (images 31 – 32) You can save element transfer setting sets so that you quickly choose from a drop-down menu, under the cursor when applying this tool, which settings you wish to transfer (eg: everything but meta-data).

The second is the new formatted text features that allow text call-outs to pull up automatically various information about the object it is pointing to. For example, you can make some element show its ID, classification, or some geometric data like height, area, volume. The pet palette popup for this tool also allows you to format this text call out exactly how you want it. (image 33) You can also save it as a Favorite so you can apply those settings to other text call-out elements. This is huge because as the model changes your documentation changes at these advanced call-outs change automatically, reflecting changes in the BIM model.

These are the big workflow items in the new ARCHICAD 21 and they offer order-of-magnitude speed-ups in some areas while making significant contributions to the advancement of architectural design workflows in the era of AI and algorithmic design. —— ANTHONY FRAUSTO-ROBLEDO, AIA, LEED AP, Editor-in-Chief

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