HumbleChief

THX I'll that a try

Hadn't thought of landings...

Thanks David, How?

+1

I've got an interior space that is giving me fits and would appreciate another look at the plan and design approach. As can be seen from the pic below there is a lot of cut up sections to the space and each approach (attic wall, pass throughs, doorways) has failed on some level. Curious as to what approach you might take to achieve the pictured results. Thanks Here's the plan WALLS 1.plan

I think that's (another) fascinating topic. "What obligation does an Architect/Designer have when designing a home as regards to budget." Is it their fiduciary duty to insure their design fits within the client's budget? Do they have any other duty other than getting the client what they want? I'm sure there are some pretty strong opinions regarding same but if there's no clear agreement between the Designer and client what are the obligations? I give NO budget numbers EVER, make that clear up front, and leave all costing to the builder and client but again many different approaches out there. Started a new thread. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/10294-construction-budgets-and-our-fiduciary-duties-as-designerarchitects/

I think you're right Perry - we all know that.

Maybe it's the creative application of great and creative ideas that gives this industry a 'great' name?

I've used that mentality for many years and hopefully I haven't single handedly given the industry a bad name. I actually didn't realize 'this industry' had a bad name and if it does then it's really more individuals who have a bad name because they focus on just one part of the process and don't follow all of the suggestions in this thread. If a reader wants to take one piece of a post and make a federal case out of it one is surely free to do so but if you read all the response that same reader will not find a single suggestion to ignore any single piece of the building process. The process is complex for sure and no part should be ignored but there seems like there's room for a few wild ideas in the early stages but not for everyone and I get that. One has to follow their own course in such matters and find something that works for them. There is more than one approach that works and each designer/builder should find the one that works best.

Meant only in the 'general spirit'. We all know the details can get messy and secondly I would not proceed with caution, I would proceed with abandon and see what you come up with, then deal with the 'messy'.

Hard to imagine how badly a Frank Gehry design would freak out the 'rules' crowd on this forum. Of course there will be construction challenges. Of course every design has the potential to need structural changes. Of course it's not easy and requires a good hard look from an engineer - there's not one post here suggesting otherwise. I'm only suggesting there's a time for design and a time for engineering. Unfortunately some of us (I include myself too many times) let our engineering knowledge get in the way of free flowing design ideas which can, at times, cripple the design possibilities. I remember a homeowner who wanted a huge open floor plan like 45 ft. x 120 ft. with a huge open ceiling and I began our conversation with, "That will be very expensive and difficult." The client looked at me a little sideways and I realized I had just shut down the creative process. The design was, of course, expensive and difficult but I learned that just leaving the creative door open and my practical 'how to build it' side out the conversation was valuable in the creative process. It's not easy but try it sometime and see what changes.

Really? I saw an interesting design awaiting lumber sizing and structural calcs to see how feasible the design might be to build. To the OP - have fun with your design and figure out how to build it later, it's so much more creative and a much more interesting adventure. Leave the rules behind for now and leave them for those who think those rules must be followed.

Never thought of doing things this way but would love the option to do so. Great idea.

Well maybe there are some absolutes and no room for creative differences - I was probably mistaken and I've changed my mind - there is most likely only one way to proceed.

+1

I don't think there's any absolute formula one needs to follow. You don't have to go to a professional designer on day one, or ever, if you are pleased with your ideas and they fit your life style and family needs. Any design almost always needs an engineer's expertise to size lumber/footings etc. but if you like the design you've come up with then build it. Chief gives even the DIY designer some great tools to visualize the finished product and there's really only one test of whether or not you've created a 'good' design and that's if it pleases you. If you rush it then you will run into trouble but if you consider many different aspects of design (they are not really all that secret) there's no reason you can't come with something more than livable. I say jump in with both feet!!

..nor is it shown in section if it's the only layer selected. What other layer behaves like that? Why? What are cross section lines?

I have a feeling 'Cross Section Lines' have a very unique purpose in Chief. If the 'All Off' layer set is used then just the 'Cross Section Lines' layer is selected, nothing shows. But if your Section Layer Set is chosen, 'Cross Section Lines' will turn on and off with the layer. So they are there but not really 'there' and behave like no other Layer I know of.

That's as good a strategy as any and I would focus on the design, and leave the structure alone for now, as that should free up your creative energy to design what you want free from structural restraints. Then when you get what you want design wise, see if it can be built and how much extra it might cost to stick with your design versus making some changes to save on the budget. This strategy allows for much more freedom in the design process and one I employ a lot. Others will surely disagree and think that the structure should be considered during the design phase but I find that it just gets in the way and almost any design can be built as long as you are willing to write large enough checks.

I'm curious Ryan, are you building a house for yourself? What is your overall plan? Your knowledge seems to be very limited and your experience as well but I don't want assume such things without knowing what your overall plan is. To answer your question more directly, exposed beams will effect the overall structure and load/framing if they are engineered to do so but they don't have to. You can also install exposed beams that have very little to no effect on the load/structure as well but again it's an engineering question as much as a design question and very difficult to answer in any definitive manner on this forum.

Both the rafter sizes and ridge board/beam size can be specified in Chief's roof framing dbx. Make sure auto roof framing is turned on and you can change sizes in the roof framing dbx. The rafter depth is hidden in the structure dbx and the width specified below. The ridge is spec'd separately. Sizing them is another question but once you know the sizes you can tell Chief (not the other way around) what size to make those members in that roof framing dbx.

THANK YOU DAVID!!! Sadly the paradigm still eludes me...

To continue my string of embarrassing posts I am still struggling to understand Chief's structure dbx and cannot figure out this latest behavior. I am trying to lower the floor of the garage to -12" but it seems to lower the floors on all the other rooms. I've never seen this before and am wondering what simple setting I am missing? Is Chief 'remembering' a setting somehow? How can changing the floor height in one room change all the other floor heights? Is that expected behavior? FLOOR HEIGHTS.plan

Yes Lew, good explanation and I think I've unwittingly benefited from the behavior you're describing but just never really understood it.

Here's another explanation of the (beneficial in my opinion) behavior from Tech support. The reason, simply put: the program remembers various room settings. As stated, these settings can be flushed, for example, by deleting the Foundation and starting over -- deleting the Foundation floor with Auto Rebuild on will not just clear the foundation floor, but delete the entire Floor 0, which is what is necessary to wipe all of this remembered information, saving and closing the plan is necessary to completely flush this type of information as well. This behavior can be seen anywhere a room is defined and is typically going to help you even though it's not apparent at the time. The intent is to remember and save data about how the rooms are defined in the event that the room definition is lost, the user won't have to waste time redefining a room because they accidentally disconnected a wall, etc. Knowing how and why it works, you can force it with expected results. For instance, if you start a brand new plan and draw a room, bisect it with an interior wall, set one room to Living and one to Family, drop the family room's Floor © value to -6", then delete the interior wall--the area will be defined by whichever room was larger, either Living or Family, and take on the settings of that room. Now, redraw the Interior wall and you will see the Living and Family rooms will be redefined as they previously were, the Living at 0" and the Family at -6". In this specific plan, the information that is being retained is actually the Floor 1 Room's "Monolithic Slab Foundation" setting, also forcing the Floor Supplied by Foundation Room Below to be set. On Floor 1, if you open the middle room, uncheck "Floor Supplied by the Foundation Room Below" and "Monolithic Slab Foundation", then delete and redraw the room, the foundation will regenerate with default stem walls. So, in this case it's not so much remembering the Foundation, but the room above's Floor settings.