When Altius (parent company of Sustain Design Architects, Inc) began, back in 1998, the firm had been using multiple 3D software programs to produce custom residential projects.
Back then, the team in the Mac-based office looked for ways to excel as they worked on projects that included primary residence single-family homes and vacation cottages, and soon adopted an Archicad workflow.
Since then, the team has been using Archicad long enough to have the software used on the same project twice! “The first project we completed in Archicad, a house we designed is being renovated for a new owner – in Archicad, of course. We love Archicad and we absolutely wouldn’t trade it for anything,” said Cathy Garrido Managing Principal, OAA, ARIDO, Sustain Design Architects Inc.
INTRODUCING:
The Don Mills Ravine Home
Located in Toronto, The Don Mills Ravine home is a ‘cottage in the city’ for the couple that calls it home. It represents a typical project for the firm. The appeal of this Toronto home ultimately has little to do with technical sophistication or a smartly ordered layout. It’s the sense you get, from your first view of the front facade to the gracious views through the expansive glass curtain walls facing the ravine, that human beings live here, and enjoy living.
TECHNOLOGY
Getting client by-in, with Archicad and BIMx
Sustain Design, Inc/Altius keeps its founding philosophy central to its work, honoring the tradition of the master builder. Garrido says using Archicad allows the architects and designers to take responsibility for all phases of the project’s life cycle. The software supports planning, architectural design, interior design, and construction so that it can be managed in an integrated model. “We work entirely in Archicad and find that showing our clients the model is enormously beneficial. It helps them imagine what it’s going to look like in real life. Archicad lets them truly understand floor plans, elevations, and sections and get a virtual experience of the building.”
Graphisoft’s award-winning presentation app, BIMx assists with bridging that gap of understanding, adds Garrido. “We love BIMx because we can share the model in a way that clients are able to ‘walk through’ the home on their own. Even when it’s just a sketch model, without materials or textures selected, we involve the client at a level that enhances their understanding.”
We love BIMx because we can share the model in a way that clients are able to ‘walk through’ the home on their own.
Cathy Garrido Managing Principal, OAA, ARIDO, Sustain Design Architects Inc.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT:
The Don Mills Ravine Home
The front elevation of the home is wide, but not imposing. At about 5,000 square feet, this is not a small house, but it’s not a mansion either. Set at the edge of a circular driveway — the better to accommodate the parking needs of guests, or to drop off a passenger under sheltering eaves — it organizes itself into three main volumes. At each side is a balanced composition of steel cladding over a main level faced in cut sandstone; in the center, rising all the way to the top, an expanse of timber and glass offers a view clear through to the treetops behind the house.
Trellis-like slats cut in the right side of the front entrance portico let sunlight into the front hall (and rainwater onto a small garden next to the front steps), banishing the gloom that sometimes comes from deep eaves. Open the door, and the house opens like a book: past a roomy vestibule, a soaring two-story bank of Douglas fir-framed curtain walls reveals the first bright view of the garden (right).
The main living area boasts 20-foot ceilings (a glass-railed mezzanine along one side leads to the upper rooms), a central two-sided fireplace clad in honed and polished basalt tiles with a three-dimensional effect, and sleek white oak floors. All those big architectural gestures contrast with finishing details that impart a more abstract, natural feeling, even a certain light-heartedness. It’s most noticeable in the lighting: a quintet of multi-branched circular pendants that resemble stylized dandelion clocks, or perhaps hydrangea blossoms. Their organic shapes are enhanced by a kidney-bean-shaped sofa from Elte, and a breakfast table perched at the edge of the kitchen in the shape of a planchette.
On the other side of the giant fireplace is one of several smaller, human-scale sitting areas in the house that form a counterpoint to the grander spaces. The ceiling stops down to a more human-scaled eight feet, with its own framed garden view; stylized birds fly over the hearth (seen left). Decorated with pictures of family and pets, designed for stretching out and reading, chatting, or catching up on Netflix, these rooms are the architectural equivalent of woolly slippers.
What I love about this house is how it’s designed to do so many things, and it does them all really well… It’s designed to be a grand house for entertaining, and it does that well. But it’s also a cozy, intimate home for two people. There are absolutely no spaces in the house that don’t get used.
Cathy Garrido Managing Principal, OAA, ARIDO, Sustain Design Architects Inc.
Methods, workflows, and strategies to ensure project success
A commitment to energy efficiency
Creating that cozy feeling of woolen slippers within the design is supported by the firm’s commitment to specializing in energy efficiency. They are working within Archicad to expand the use of the energy modelling ability so much so, that the firm has added building science consultants to help them better understand what they are modelling.
“The consultant helps us understand the information that we’re getting, to ensure that it’s correct and to know what changes need to be made if the design can improve on the measurements of energy use and efficiency. We are learning ways to adjust our design in terms of shading or thermal bridging. A few projects now are undergoing additional scrutiny on the modelling side to compare and establish standards.”
More about Archicad’s inbuilt energy evaluation toolsCoordination with contractors
While Sustain Design is working toward proficiency with energy modelling in Archicad, the team is confident with the software’s ability to support coordination with consultants.
“We coordinate all our consultants’ drawings in 3D. Structural and mechanical, ductwork and plumbing are all in place so that we can coordinate in 3D. Often our buildings can be very complicated with steel frames that require drains to be cut through steel. Doing it all in 3D is super important because I couldn’t imagine trying to coordinate all those elements in a 2D format.”
Explore Archicad’s collaboration toolsLean construction
Sustain Design works within the concept of lean construction as well. Working to reduce waste by using the Archicad model to order materials. The team hopes to see the adoption of this process become more mainstream and acknowledges hesitation from building and construction entities.
“The drawings we produce are more and more detailed all the time. We remain focused on improving the level of detail so that the builders have faith we have given them a reliable guideline for how to build. Our internal construction management division manages the construction of roughly a dozen projects in a given calendar year. We provide our in-house construction managers with iPads with BIMx loaded, so it can be used through construction.”
Visualization with BIMx
The BIMx allows all parties to visualize design concepts and understand how they’ll be realized once the project is completed. For example, the kitchen – located on the other side of the house – performs a careful balancing act: it works equally well for catering a large party and weeknight dinner prep for one or two. “Designing a kitchen that works for both one person or for multiple cooks can be tricky,” says Altius’s Graham Smith, “since you have to fit everything within reach of a single cook, but at the same time expand out so that caterers can bring in trays and have room to spread out.”
More about BIMxRELAXING AT
The Don Mills Ravine Home
In warm weather, the back garden effectively doubles the footprint of the home; it’s designed to allow the couple and their friends to spend as much time there as they do inside. A well-equipped outdoor kitchen — snazzy enough that in warmer months, you could do pretty much all your cooking there — includes a wood-burning pizza oven, a big favourite with the kids. Closer to the house, a sheltered dining area and lounge are directly accessible from the living room.
In the central section is a second, larger seating area, set on a raised porcelain-tile patio next to a pool with a tinkling waterfall. Beyond here, the foot of the garden ends with a final, cooling stretch of lawn, which blurs the dividing line between the property’s end and the beginning of the ravine. And overlooking it all, through expanded glass walls that rise from the main floor rooms to the indoor-outdoor rooftop lounge high above, the house offers endlessly changing views of the woods and hills in the distance, from a variety of angles and heights, through the day and the seasons.
Identifying problems early, with Archicad
Having a 3D model to reference recently helped solve a potential problem during construction, where an incorrect calculation had been made for excavation depth. Thanks to the Archicad model, Garrido and her team knew immediately that a correction was needed.
“We referred to the model which showed that the excavation was not right. Our confidence in the model’s accuracy allowed us to prove the excavation depth – foundations had to be adjusted, but it could have been much worse. We knew our model was correct, it helped us avoid the nightmare of re-coordinating everything. As it happened, this model was our best-coordinated 3D so far, between the mechanical designer and other consultants.”
With this high level of involvement, modeling everything in 3D, Sustain Design keeps reaching for the potential to create beautiful spaces in a way that is seamless and rewarding for their clients. The team embraces taking on a central role in projects, empowered by Archicad, so that the designs can flourish and achieve the level of award-winning and critically acclaimed projects.
[Archicad] helped us avoid a nightmare of re-coordinating everything.
Cathy Garrido Managing Principal, OAA, ARIDO, Sustain Design Architects Inc.
About Altius and Sustain Design Architects, Inc
Altius is the parent company of Toronto-based Sustain Design Architects, Inc. The firm primarily works on residential projects including single family homes and cottages.
For more information visit altius.net