How to get the construction documents from a BIM model

Using BIM software facilitates and speeds up the work for designers.

Professionals who decide to adopt the BIM methodology obtain numerous advantages in terms of quality, simplicity of planning and scheduling.

In fact, BIM software for architecture offers tools and technologies able to speed up and automate numerous processes in order to guarantee a considerable saving of time for the designer together with greater precision and attention to detail.

Among the main features there is the possibility of being able to automatically create all technical construction drawings (floor plan views, elevation views, cross-sections, iso-metric representations, reports, tables and schedules) and easily obtain customized working drawings.

Let’s continue using the single-family residence, “Casa en los Cisnes” project and see how to obtain all project drawings with the advanced document composition tools.

Our previous project overview analyzed the project with regard to the outdoor spaces design aspects. In particular, we also saw how to easily model a variable depht pool with a BIM software.

Casa en los Cisnes: architectural organization of spaces

Casa en los Cisnes is a single-family residence built by architect Esteban Fallone and located in Club De Campo Abril (Buenos Aires).

The structure is characterized by the presence of two orthogonal volumes.

The ground floor is connected directly to the garden through long strip windows that provide the indoor environment with a greater amount of natural lighting.

At ground floor we have the living area, an open plan kitchen, a small study, a bathroom and laundry area.

Ground floor plan view

At first floor, designed as a sleeping area, we have a large double bedroom with relating bathroom and 2 bedrooms with attached services.

These two floors are connected by an internal staircase.

Casa en los Cisnes First Floor

Let’s see how, with the use of the Edificius architectural design software, the project’s construction documents can be produced.

The project drawings: plan view, elevation view, cross-section and axonometric views

Edificius introduces innovative project document creation and simplifies the way all construction documents and working drawings are prepared.

Let’s start off from ground floor level. Using the plan view object, we can quickly create the relevant views for our project layout preparing it for printing or sharing with other project collaborators, etc.

Customization means we can manage the graphic representation styles, define dimension lines and add construction details for each of those important design aspects that compose our building’s project documentation.

From the cross-section view, we can activate the axonometric-cutaway view, to which other attributes and properties can be defined, such as, colour and transparency. Furthermore, using the “cut” or “do not cut” tool, we can easily customize the cutaway drawing view in order to highlight certain design aspects or hide others.

Static rendering is just a matter of pressing a button with all the relevant and most important settings already defined or, alternatively, we can verify the same view in real time thanks to the Real Time Rendering environment.

Isometric cut-away made with Edificius

Creating the project documents: Casa en los Cisnes

In Edificius, we can switch to the construction documents node and with a simple Drag&Drop, we can easily compose a detailed layout with:

• elevation views
• plan views
• cross sections
• axonometric cutaway drawings.

That’s all there is to it!…Preparing complex construction documents with a BIM design software has never so straight forward allowing the designer to concentrate more on his design issues rather than on having to learn tricky software procedures.

Here are a series of renderings produced with Edificius.