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AEC Tech News #172

26 Jul, 2006 By: Kenneth Wong


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Elementary Rules of Rainwater, Daylight and Heat Gain

Ushering nature into Ben Franklin Elementary School

Where do ideas come from? If you ask the principals at Mahlum Architects, they might say, as stated on their Web site, “They stem from a process that’s two-thirds orderly -- sitting in a room away from distraction, thinking -- and one-third pure Aha!” When thinking about designing the Ben Franklin Elementary School in Kirkland, Washington, the "Aha!" was the woods surrounding the site.

“The intent is to connect the school environment to the native environment,” explains David Mount, an associate and project architect at Mahlum. “In the courtyards and around the building, you’re constantly coming in contact with nature. The building’s wings reach into the woods on the site’s north edge and, on the second floor, create a feeling of being up in the trees.”

Eco-Charrette

Because Lake Washington School District, the owner, anticipated local, regional and national mandates for sustainable architecture, all interested parties in the Ben Franklin Elementary School project held an eco-charrette during the planning phase. Read more>>


Q&A: 1-2-3 Revit: Solutions to Run BIM on a WAN

By Rick Rundell

Most building design tools are based on legacy drafting or object-oriented CAD technology -- file-based applications with computational or practical limits constraining the size of the output files. A purpose-built BIM solution such as Autodesk Revit uses a completely different technology to define a building project; it uses an interconnected database of building information. Globalization dictates that these data-intensive BIMs must be shared between distributed design teams as well as clients and contractors. New BIM applications that serve engineering disciplines (such as Autodesk Revit Structure and Revit Systems, have further underscored the need for design collaboration across distributed teams.

If project teams are in the same company, everyone can work together on a single shared model. With multiple teams or disciplines working in different organizations, the Revit platform approach lets each cross-link their models -- creating a shared, distributed BIM. Read more>>


Mark Your Calendar: AEC Events

2006 Design-Build Conference & Expo
October 18-20, 2006
Nashville, Tennessee
DBIA members and partners will bring their creative energy to Nashville's Gaylord Opryland for their annual conference. Read more

For Cadalyst's full calendar of events, click here >>


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