How to Setup Archicad Composite Structures with Cost Loaded Labels

[@jupol143]

My type of man, analytic and right approach! Thanks! Great!

[@CONTRABIM]

Thanks Jurica!

[@conmes3077]

deeply impressed John 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Stunning

[@CONTRABIM]

Thank you conmes!

[@ChrisStow]

Another great video - thanks John keep up the great work

[@CONTRABIM]

Thanks Chris! Glad you liked it

[@videopeich]

Great work, John. You give me lot's of ideas for my workflows.

[@CONTRABIM]

Awesome, thanks Nico for the comment!

[@muhammadrifadz11]

Tengs bro,it helps a lot to survive New semester at my architecture college And i literally make 23 draw include with section,floor plan,etc last semester in archicad 22...

[@CONTRABIM]

Awesome thanks for the comment!

[@titirigaalin]

Hello John, great video, congrats on all you work. I am new to the whole quantity and cost aspect and I have a lot of questions, but I hope you could answer just one. How do you classify composite elements whose components dont belong în the same cathegory and how do you handle them afterwords for quantity calculations. Thank you a lot!

[@diegobritos8893]

Hi John, great channel and amazing job!!! I have a question/challenge for you. Have you tried to use the masterformat classification for Building Material only instead of elements?

[@CONTRABIM]

Hi Diego. Great question, and yes I've definitely explored using Classifications for building materials. I'm currently organizing the building materials by the CSI classification, hard inputted into material ID and Name, but you could assign a masterformat classification as well. Problems start to occur though when you have a masterformat classification assigned on both levels. In many cases, you have to assign masterformat to elements anyway in the case of objects that are not made of a material.

[@mariansdraila]

Great video! Never thought of doing things this way! What if the wall spans across multiple rooms (as it usually does) and you have different types of paint in those rooms and in some rooms you have tiles on the wall that are only applied up to a certain height! I usually model the tiles separately with a second wall and that allows me to have the tiles shorter than the main wall! It can also be done with a complex profile wall but that method has it's own problems! I use a surface schedule to extract the exposed surface area and that gives me the exact surface of wall that's going o be covered with paint but the problem is that the schedule takes a huge amount of time to calculate the surface area on a bigger project! Plus, I hate it when I need to slice the wall in multiple sections just so I can put a different paint on it!

[@CONTRABIM]

Hi Marian. Thanks for the comment and questions! Sure there are always a lot of particulars that can be worked through, but much of what you're describing I'd consider a CD/Bidding level of detail. The method described here is ideal for cost assemblies at SD/DD level of detail, where you don't need to define different finishes as described. For that level, going to component/surface schedules can do the trick, breaking it down more into individual trades and materials. Breaking it down is good to help with the longer calculation times:) On the tile note, if you're modeling them separately, super easy to quantify and define. In general, the more we break out scopes into different elements, the easy it becomes to perform exact takeoffs and cost calcs. It's when we have large composite structures or complex profiles is when we need a system like this to handle it!

[@TheOligopeptide]

Thank you for the information. Can it be done so that the costs to be drawn from an exterior spreadsheet? So you can update the prices for everything if prices go up or down without having to do that manually everytime?

[@CONTRABIM]

Check this video out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iWSnha2aaMaImck Same general workflow exporting and importing properties from composites...

[@CONTRABIM]

Thanks for the comment and question! Yes all these details can referenced in a single interactive schedule, then exported to excel, filled out or updated, then imported back in. This other video link I posted describes the general workflow, and also has a sample download of the VLOOKUP formula used in Excel. Thanks!

[@TheOligopeptide]

@@CONTRABIM thank you for the answer. Really impressive stuff and it really helps when doing estimating. I am currently using Planswift with google spreadsheets to do the exact same thing but with Archicad if you model everything correctly you eliminate a step. Will definitely look into your method

[@elbeto1975]

John, great tutorial. I wanted to know if there is any available Cost database that you can associate with Archicad, so you don't have to fill the cost every time of if the cost changes, then it updates the cost estimate automatically. Thanks

[@CONTRABIM]

Thanks for the comment and the question! There are some different ways of linking cost databases, one being the older property object calculation method. With the newer Property Manager, properties can be exported and imported via the excel exchange, and this can also be setup using python scripts. I prefer the method of exporting properties via an interactive schedule to excel, then use a vlookup formula to automatically apply updates or add new entries into "types" and "costs" fields for the many different components. The other end of the spectrum would be to have the database of costs on the excel side, and then populate quantities directly there where it is managed side by side with the estimate.

[@MrWwwfoxwww]

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