Has anyone ever thought of designing a residential home like this?

Before I went to college I was a Building Contractor and Now, with said experience, as I am designing a house, I am always thinking, how is this going to go-together? I know a lot of Engineers and Architects dont know the first thing about building a bird house much less a residential, commercial, or industrial building...

but I digress... Didnt mean to step on any toes...LOL...that was the builder coming out in me fighting the designer in me...LOL

What I have been thinking about, instead of letting AutoCAD or Architecture put every thing together, i.e., the sheetrock on the walls, the 8" block or put a roof system on. How 'bout if I was to design every element that is included in the process. For instance: (This is all done in 3D)

1. Build a 8" concrete block to make and stack just as if your help were stacking them

2. Extrude different sizes of 1x, 2x, 4x and then cut them as need for application.

3. Build all headers for doors and windows just as we would on job site.

4. Build all T's and Corners just as we would on job site

5. Build all truss just as we would have them delivered to job site

6. the windows would be a little time consuming so generally have them brought in from Architecture just as you would order them from Home Depot

7. Doors are another matter because that is something that I used to custom build as a home builder

8. Underlayment and sheathing would have to be built and placed just as on the job site

9. Shingles would have to be designed and placed just as we would on the job site.

etc...

etc......

What would be real fun, if we all could do this as a project in Inventor so we could put our houses under a stress test to see who did the best job....of course it would have to be built to code....LOL

OH....Oh...Oh.....what would be really cool is to run it thru a 3D printer!!!!!!

Taylor, you are a sick puppy!

I can relate totally.

Having worked as a finiish carpenter for most of my life, and on a lot of very nice projects, I am currently building my own home, for the first time.

Most of the building here is done with block, where as I am used to using doug fir for stick framing.

When I started designing it I thought the same thing, but I opted for just using the Architecture desktop.

But that does not mean that I don't embrace the concept, I do, totally, in theory.

It would be a lot easier doing crown moulding digitally, and dead on accurate.

I am one of the very few carpenters I know who actually enjoys doing drywall, not the mudding so much,

as the geometry and demanding pieces. Very gratifying when you fit a tough piece in the puzzle, and it fits perfectly.

I have a SketchUp book that shows you how to do this. I try to dig it up.

While in principal a "total" model like this is a laudable goal in reality it's far too top heavy.

You suggest modelling a single masonry block and placing lots of these as they would be constructed:

This alone would make the computer model huge in terms of its memory requirements - quite possibly beyond the capacity of a desktop computer. I saw a tweet from Pixar recently boasting of the number of hairs the model of one of their monsters had. A typical terraced house in the UK is roughly 5x8m, this equates to around 115 bricks per course, if it's a two storey house call it 65 courses high, and you're at nearly 8000 elements on bricks alone. This is roughly 80 times the number of elements the entire model of that same terraced house would use if I were to model its shell in the normal AutoCAD Architecture method. Even the simplest change would become virtually impossible.

Consider yourself as the builder who receives the drawings produced from this model: would you really be happy with a designer wanting to tell you exactly where you're supposed to put each bloody brick, I bet you'd want to know "who does *he* think he is to be telling *me* how to do my job."

Like I say, it's a laudable goal in principal, and speaking as a designer I'd always do my best to consider how the thing's actually going to be built and to draw it appropriately, but somewhat over kill for anything bigger or more complicated than an outhouse!

dJE

While in principal a "total" model like this is a laudable goal in reality it's far too top heavy.

This alone would make the computer model huge in terms of its memory requirements - quite possibly beyond the capacity of a desktop computer.

Like I say, it's a laudable goal in principal, but somewhat over kill for anything bigger or more complicated than an outhouse

dJE

Truer words were never spoken, but it still has huge virtually digital ... child with a few hundred thousand lego blocks at his disposal sort of appeal.

Truer words were never spoken, but it still has huge virtually digital ... child with a few hundred thousand lego blocks at his disposal sort of appeal.

so....yall say it cant be done

so....yall say it cant be done

You are just waiting for somebody to throw down the gauntlet, and claim that it can't be done, aren't you?

Because while it makes no sense on so many levels, it would still be damned entertaining.

You're definitely talking my language.

I don't think Dan's point was that it couldn't be done,

but rather that it might not be as easy as one might think, and potentially system crashing kind of inefficient.

I love modeling 3D screws and such, but can't use them in my drawings because they create such humongous files in Autocad.

In Inventor they are all slam dunks.

Hey, did you hear that, were those hooves on your roof?

You are just waiting for somebody to throw down the gauntlet, and claim that it can't be done, aren't you?

Because while it makes no sense on so many levels, it would still be damned entertaining.

You're definitely talking my language.

I don't think Dan's point was that it couldn't be done,

but rather that it might not be as easy as one might think, and potentially system crashing kind of inefficient.

I love modeling 3D screws and such, but can't use them in my drawings because they create such humongous files in Autocad.

In Inventor they are all slam dunks.

Hey, did you hear that, were those hooves on your roof?

well they said we couldnt get beer from Texarkana, TX in 24 hrs........east bound and down...........................

You are just waiting for somebody to throw down the gauntlet, and claim that it can't be done, aren't you?

Because while it makes no sense on so many levels, it would still be damned entertaining.

You're definitely talking my language.

I don't think Dan's point was that it couldn't be done,

but rather that it might not be as easy as one might think, and potentially system crashing kind of inefficient.

I love modeling 3D screws and such, but can't use them in my drawings because they create such humongous files in Autocad.

In Inventor they are all slam dunks.

Hey, did you hear that, were those hooves on your roof?

I dont take any easy route in any thing I do.... thats is why I as a primarly designer feed on.....well lets just leave it at that

Come on...yall are so close....yall were very close in guessing the outcome.....

Dadgad...they are goats on the roof!!!

I dont take any easy route in any thing I do.... thats is why I as a primarly designer feed on.....well lets just leave it at that

Beer and gators?

I have a SketchUp book that shows you how to do this. I try to dig it up.

Here it is...

http://www.amazon.com/3D-Construction-Modeling-Dennis-Fukai/dp/0976274108

Here it is...

http://www.amazon.com/3D-Construction-Modeling-Dennis-Fukai/dp/0976274108

Do you own this book? Man I love books!!!!!!!!!!! I have a library that that would make Stephen Hawking envious!!!

Looks like a good book!!!

Beer and gators?

No.....................Jack and Coke...LOL

I don't see why it couldn't be done on a desktop computer even with only 8-12GB of RAM.

Do you own this book? Man I love books!!!!!!!!!!! I have a library that that would make Stephen Hawking envious!!!

 

Looks like a good book!!!

Yes I have a copy. I bought it a few years ago.

Dbdesign go for it!

Make the block solids this way you can cut and punch the windows unless you wnat to make the windows exactly block lengths its pretty easy to use UCS X 90 dge to set your face up to be vertical then array your bricks, get a copy of cookiecutter.lsp use this to pinch holes for doors and windows.

I will send more hints very soon. This image is made from pure Autocad just using stuff like UCS and thicknes plus a some smart lips for automating doors and windows.

Before I went to college I was a Building Contractor and Now, with said experience, as I am designing a house, I am always thinking, how is this going to go-together? I know a lot of Engineers and Architects dont know the first thing about building a bird house much less a residential, commercial, or industrial building...

 

but I digress... Didnt mean to step on any toes...LOL...that was the builder coming out in me fighting the designer in me...LOL............

 

I there with you, draw the 16 penny nails for the framing and dryway screws as well.

On one job prior to my CAD days I was doing construction/building/carpenter/painter/elect/plumbing and all. We had one job to build a parts rooms in an auto repair shop, the designer using AutoCAD gave us a BOM and ordered the materials. Sad to say we had twice as many of these and only half of those to do the job. After that we told him to just tell what to build and we will get the materials.

One of my pet peeves is when some one gives you a set of plans and they want the interior walls right at a set dimension, now every one knows that you need to keep the studs at 16" on center and you need to use an extra stud for corners, now if that set interior walls can be moved 1-3 inches one way or the other to keep from adding that extra stud for the corner I'll do it. Same for windows and doors I'll framed them to make best use of the 16" centers studs for my cripples. Then when you get into the sheets goods I could (at one time) argue roof pitches and soffit widths to save on materials a 4-12 pitch will use more than a 3-12 pitch but it may also waste more when you are working with 4x8 sheets. When I finished a job I wanted as less waste to haul off as possible.

Dbdesign go for it!

 

Make the block solids this way you can cut and punch the windows unless you wnat to make the windows exactly block lengths its pretty easy to use UCS X 90 dge to set your face up to be vertical then array your bricks, get a copy of cookiecutter.lsp use this to pinch holes for doors and windows.

 

I will send more hints very soon. This image is made from pure Autocad just using stuff like UCS and thicknes plus a some smart lips for automating doors and windows.

 

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No BIGAL I am talking about building the house as one would one 2x4 at a time...sorry if I didnt explain myself correctly