Casa Kaprys remodelled with a BIM software, Edificius

In this article we’ll be describing the “Casa Kaprys” project (by studio di Architettura Estudio Galera and built in Cariló – Argentina) taken as an inspiration to demonstrate how using Edificius can truly simplify certain Architectural design aspects and lead to surprising and unexpected results.

Casa Kaprys: architectural organization of spaces

Casa Kaprys is a relaxation residence placed on the top of a dune in a wooded environment in Carilò, a seaside town 400 Km from Buenos Aires.

Casa Kaprys floor plan – produced with Edificius

Its L-shaped floor plan develops across a single floor where there is a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms. It also accomodates a covered terrace.

The living area overlooks a panoramic view of the surrounding forest.

The parking spaces are comfortably accessed thanks to an impressive staircase, illuminated by a glass covered solarium opening.
A peculiar reinforced concrete shear wall featuring a series of holes, gives a characteristic see-through impression towards the living room.

Thanks to the Edificius BIM software, Casa Kaprys was completely re-modelled from scratch finishing off with the working drawings that were re-composed with great freedom by simply composing the layout with drag & drop operations. You can download a copy of the example file below.

View one of the Casa Kaprys working drawings entirely created with with Edificius

Re-modelling Casa Kaprys using Edificius

We started off by modeling the external surfaces and in relation to the actual area topography surrounding the building.

Modelling the terrain is extremely easy to address considering the advanced Edificius modelling tools: contour lines, earthworks, and other specific terrain modelling features that speed up the process with constantly updated information regarding cut & fill data.

The Building envelope is defined by simply importing the original 2D CAD file of the project in the “.dwg” file format. The auto-detection tools do the rest of the work to automatically insert:

• columns
• beams
• perimeter walls
• drainage systems
• slabs
• doors
• windows
• stairs
• furniture
• various other entities

This leads us to the roof which is also very easy to model, together with its sloping skylights.

All the materials that make up Casa Kaprys (reinforced concrete, aluminum, wood, etc.) are already present in the Edificius BIM Objects Library and are ready to be used in order to generate realistic representations of the project.

Thanks to the interaction with Sketchup, even adding other characteristics and details increases the level of realism when focusing on the visual aspects of the project.

Producing the 3D renderings of Casa Kaprys with Edificius

With the model finished, photo-realistic renderings can be quickly produced by setting up the desired scene (camera position) and without any need to specify complex rendering parameters; even using the optimised default settings allow you to get highly professional results.

Lighting, shadows and special effects give that extra professional touch that turn the project into a work of art.

The real-time rendering view, apart from allowing the architect to produce HD Video, also serves as a design aid supporting him with a continuous feedback of his changes or material choices.

The following video, besides showing how easy it was to model Casa Kaprys, also shows the accuracy of the produced renderings that can easily be confused with the with real photos.

Click here to download Edificius, the architectural design software