Modeling walls

- [Voiceover] So let's start adding walls to the project, and to do that we're gonna go here to the wall tool in the toolbox. Click on the wall, and before we starting adding this, let's go to the wall settings dialogue, so you can either click this button or use the shortcut command T, or control T if you're in the Windows. Here on the wall settings dialogue you have geometry positioning, how the wall's gonna look in floor plan and section, and in the 3D model. In this structure is gonna be the same many of the Archichad tools, so it's gonna be the same for the slabs, beams, and columns, which makes it easier for us.

Here in the geometry positioning, the first thing we can start setting up is where the wall is gonna be attached to. Right now the wall is attached to the ground floor and the first floor, and it means that if we change the floor to floor height, the wall is gonna stretch together. We can also keep a distance from the floor above, so for instance if I put a positive number here, we're gonna always go 300 above the next floor, and if we put a negative number, we always gonna keep a distance from the floor, so no matter if we change the floor to floor height, we always gonna keep the 300 and stretch the rest, so right now, our wall has a 3.44 meters height here, which is result of the floor to floor minus 300.

Next, we can choose the structure of the wall, starting generic or composite, where we can choose the composite of the wall, so let's say, right now we're doing a schematic design or a concept design where we don't really know what's the wall gonna be made of, we don't need to know the buildup, yet, so let's choose the first option here, generic wall, and here we can choose the building material, which is the material that the wall is gonna be made of. Also, we don't need to choose that right now, so let's look for one of the generic ones, and I'm gonna go all the way to the top and choose the generic external cladding, 'cause we're gonna start doing the external walls of the project.

You can also choose if you want the wall to be straight or trapezoid or any free-form shape. Let's keep it straight, and you could change the thickness. Right now, we're gonna keep it 300, and that's pretty much all we need right now to start adding the wall, so I'm gonna press okay, and I'm gonna draw the first wall, and to add the wall, all you have to do is to click on the first point and the last point, but before I conclude this wall, I'm gonna change the reference line from the outside face of the wall to center of the wall, so the reference line is the line that the wall is gonna follow, so we can choose from center to outside and inside, so I'm gonna keep it center and go all the way to the grid six.

So, Archicad is mapped to the grid six. I'm gonna go again, click on the center here. Go all the way to the grid E, the go all the way to the grid one, and close the junction. So right now, I just realized that I have chosen the wrong grid, so I'm gonna choose the walls again, and use the pet pallet to offset one edge of the wall, so I'm gonna bring one grid down on both sides here.

So now let's add another wall here. I'm gonna go back to the wall tool, command T or control T. I'm gonna add a wall that is slightly thinner, and now instead of choosing the center line of the reference, I'm gonna use the outside face, and I'm gonna add this wall here, and as you can see, the wall is on the wrong side of the line. The wrong side that I want, at least. So I'm gonna change here. I'm gonna flip by clicking this button, and as you can see, the wall has flipped.

You can also use the shortcut P. You press the letter P and the wall will flip from one side to the other, but always keeping the reference line as the outside face, so I'm gonna go all the way to this grid, and I'm gonna go up. Right now, I can type a distance, so I'm gonna press the key, D, and then type the 2200, and go back to the center of the wall. As you can see here at the bottom, those two walls have not joined, and that's because their reference lines are not touching, as you can see here, so all I have to do is to, either stretch one and the other, or let's undo this, I could also have used the intersect tool, so I select both walls, click on intersect, and they will come together.

So, remember to always keep the reference line touching so the walls join each other. Now, to add an internal wall, I'm gonna go ahead, click on the wall again, and then Command T. I'm gonna change the material to generic internal filler, yes, and let's change the thickness for 200. Press okay. I'm gonna use this grid tool. Start it here, go all the way across. As you can see, they will not join because they have different materials.

So this external cladding, this is internal filler. That's why it keeps a line here. After we have added the walls, you can select it and use the pet palette to edit it. So for instance, on this wall, I want to stretch it down, so I'm gonna click on this edge, make sure I have the stretch selected here on the pet palette and stretch down a certain number. The distance that the tracker is showing me right now is the total length of the wall. If you want to stretch down a certain distance from this point, all you have to do is to stretch a little bit over the point, press shift, and as you can see, the distance has changed from the total wall from a certain distance of that point, so starting on zero and then stretching up, or stretching down.

So now I'm gonna stretch down, press D. I'm still holding shift, and type the distance that I want. So, again, if I wanna stretch this a certain distance from this point, right now the tracker shows the total length of the wall, 6650. If I wanna stretch, let's say, 500 more, all I have to do is press shift, and as you can see, the distance has changed to 502, which means I'm going 500 more, and then I'm gonna press D and type 500, enter, and that's how you stretch only a certain distance that you want.

So I'm gonna go ahead and keep on adding the wall here. Other way to add a wall from a certain distance, and I did it for a long time, was to just add a wall here very close, select it, control D, and then offset the distance that I need, so 1900 here. Right? And I used to do that a lot, like control D, press option in the middle, and then move the distance again. In this case gonna be 2900, but there is a better way to do that.

I'm gonna undo those two walls. Click on the wall again. You may have noticed that if you stay with the cursor in a certain corner for a certain time, Archicad is gonna draw this blue circle around it, and that means that I can use this point as a reference now. So if I start moving my cursor to the right, you can see the X coordinate is showing me the distance, not just the X, but also the distance from that certain point, so I can type here, D 1900, and now I'm adding a wall from that point on.

So I'm gonna use P to flip, finish the wall. So I'm gonna hold the mouse here until we have a circle, start moving, and then type 2900. If I press D, I did it wrong. Now I can finish my wall upwards, and on that way, you can go ahead and finish adding the walls on the plan, but remember that everything we're doing is also being done in the 3D, so if you go here in the project navigator on the 3D, let's double click on the generic perspective.

We go to the 3D, and here we go, all the walls we are adding are also in the 3D, and you can also use the 3D here to draw your walls, so if I go ahead and select the wall tool, start drawing, we can actually do it here. You can also edit a wall here. So I'm gonna select this wall, make sure I choose the blue line, which is the reference line there, and choose the option here on the pet palette to stretch the wall, and you may have noticed that when you are in the 3D, you actually have other options.

For instance, you can stretch it up and down if you need it to, so I'm gonna undo that. We don't need to, and there we go. So I'm gonna press F2, go back to the floor plan, and that's how we get started building walls. So go ahead and build all the walls for the ground floor.