Designing with architectural elements in general

Module(s): General: Roofs, Planes, Sections

The following section provides tips to follow for effective design using architectural elements:

If you have never worked with Allplan before, we strongly recommend that you take the time to attend a course at Nemetschek Training. You should at least work through the Basics Tutorial and the Architecture Tutorial workbooks and avoid experimenting with ”real” projects.

• Don’t just ”start drawing”: spend some time thinking about how best to structure documents and layers for your purposes and create the structure. Background information and examples on this topic are provided in the tutorial; an introduction is also provided here:
  Working with projects, documents and layers

  Tip: Structures that have proven to be useful can be saved and reused whenever required!

• Set up the default reference planes so that they are suitable for your project – bear the room height and the floor thickness in mind. Associating the architectural elements with the default reference planes will facilitate your work and ensure that any changes you make to the room height later simply involves altering the default reference planes.

  Tip: By using reference planes, additional stories with similar layouts can be created quickly and easily with the Raise File tool.

  Note: When working with the building structure, use the floor manager.

• Decide whether you want to use predefined or custom catalogs for assigning materials (an absolute must if you are also using Allplan BCM!), or dialog boxes that you fill out as you go along (”dropdown menus”).
  For more information, see
  Basics: material catalogs
• Draw in three dimensions and use architectural elements like walls, doors and windows etc.
  As you design these elements, assign them materials and other attributes like computation mode etc.

  Tip: Consider defining styles if you frequently require the same type of element – a mouse click that can save a lot of time later!

• Make use of symbols and/or smart symbols instead of drawing standard fixtures and furnishings from scratch each time.
• Enter rooms and assign them finishing surfaces right from the outset – this serves as the basis for subsequent floor area calculations.
  For more information, see
  Basics: introduction to quantity takeoff
• Use the animation feature to check your work at regular intervals and to consider design alternatives. A walk around and through the building only takes a few mouse clicks and can be saved as a short movie that you can present to your client – thanks to virtual reality, any changes the client might require can be detected early on and before construction actually begins.