Jared Banks
Jared Banks AIA, was raised in New England (Connecticut), educated in Texas (Rice University), and worked in Minnesota for eight years before moving to Seattle, Washington. He has written over 800 articles and blog posts about BIM, ARCHICAD, and the relationship between the practice of architecture and technology. When he’s not helping people use ARCHICAD more effectively, Jared is either designing residential projects for his clients at Shoegnome Architects or hanging out with his wife and daughters.
EcoDesigner STAR – Thermal Bridging Simulation Part 3
If you’ve been following along (post 0, post 1, post 2), we’ve got a detail that is ready to analyze. Almost. We’ve designated what’s air and what’s earth in the Thermal Bridging Simulation Window. We’ve also made sure our building...
EcoDesigner STAR – Thermal Bridging Simulation Part 2
Now that the geometry is ready (discussed here), we can actually launch the Thermal Bridging Simulation. Go to the Design/Energy Evaluation Menu and then select Thermal Bridge Simulation. If your active window is a detail, that window will be the one selected. If...
EcoDesigner STAR – Thermal Bridging Simulation Part 1
Now we really begin our EcoDesigner STAR adventure. I see three things that we need to tackle with Thermal Bridging Simulation to feel comfortable using it on a real project and adding it to our bag of design and analysis tricks. How to use this function with our...
EcoDesigner STAR – Day One
My brain hurts. And I am reminded of the graphs I drew over at Shoegnome on why people fail at BIM. Take a quick moment and read it. Then come back here. Read it? Good. Because we’re about to embark on a many month adventure into BEM (Building Energy Modeling)....
Surprising Benefits of the Morph Tool
Here’s a quote from my last post on Element IDs and the Element ID Manager: “All 3D elements (including grids and zones) as well as fills have an Element ID. Lines, Polylines, Dimensions, Text, and other annotation elements do not” But what happens...
Order AND Complexity
I’ve been thinking a lot about Order and Chaos… If you haven’t read the Slate article A Unified Theory of Muppet Types, find time to read it after you’re done with this post (or pause and read that before continuing). It was transformative for...
Adding Legibility to Details
Last week I wrote about rethinking what elevations created in ArchiCAD could look like. Today I want to expand those ideas to details (and also plans, sections, etc.). In preparation for my talks at Architecture Boston Expo and EcoBuild in Washington, D.C., I...
The Evolution of an Elevation
A few recent BIM-related encounters all pointed to a similar question/want: why can’t ArchiCAD handle element edges in elevation to mimic the heavy air lines of a hand-drawn elevation? It’s a good question, but not something I’m going to answer...
Fixing Error Messages and Ugliness with the Attribute Manager
Did you know that ArchiCAD doesn’t care what you name your Attributes? At least as long as you aren’t trying to call two Attributes of the same type an identical name. That makes ArchiCAD cranky. But ArchiCAD is cool with you renaming Solid Line to...
Static Thoughts – Part 3
Other Thoughts This is the third part in my series on Static Thoughts. I’m not looking to be all encompassing and comprehensive. Instead I want to spur your imagination into the different functions at our disposal. I’m confident there are even more...
BIMcomponents.com + manuBIM
In early September we got our first Wish Upon an Object from BIMcompenents.com. Now just a few weeks later comes the next installment: Ceiling Editor US Once again we get a wonderfully built object from manuBIM (learn more about their work via all the links here). The...
Static Thoughts – Part 2
In Part 1 of this post from earlier in the week, I talked about the propagation of changes in an ArchiCAD model (for good and ill). I shared some thoughts on both preventions and cures. I now want to expand on some of those thoughts. Did you know you can lock both...
Static Thoughts – Part 1
Everything is linked! Changes made in plans propagate to sections, elevations, schedules, and 3D views! It’s all coordinated. This is the world we live in when we use ArchiCAD. And it’s great. But let’s look at the reverse for a moment… The...
Missing and Lost, but Not Gone Forever
This has happened to all of us. You add a new object or make a change and then the element is gone. You know you didn’t delete it. But it’s gone. It’s not time to panic. It’s time to think… okay “It Makes Them Disappear”… what just happened? If it’s a wall, can you...
Quick Tip: Element vs Object
Here’s a quick test. Which is correct: A) “Hi boss, check out this BIM model I’ve been working on!” or B) “Hey boss, here’s that BIM you were asking for.” The answer is B. It’s not a Building Information Model Model,...
Ten Tips for Successful BIM Implementation
The switch to BIM: bigger than just going from 2D to 3D So you’re thinking about making the jump to BIM. Or perhaps you’ve been using ArchiCAD for years and have just upgraded to the latest version. What can you do to make the transition smoother? Know...
So Many .DWG backgrounds, So Little Processing Power…
Last week, I wrote a post about some general concepts regarding collaboration and data exchange. The hard truth is that while we are all pushing for 3D collaboration, we’ve all got consultants that will be stuck in 2D for years. It might not be your structural...
One of the Most Often Asked Questions About Collaboration
Every week I get a fair number of e-mails and phone calls from users looking for quick answers and solutions. I’m (usually) more than happy to help. This week’s calls and e-mails involved confusion about layer combinations, concern about a missing...
