Open Source Ecology Elijah, 11 Jan 2021

Previous Meeting

Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Open Source Architecture Workflows for the Seed Eco-Home

Description

Discussion with Elijah Pearce, licensed architect in California - assisting on developing open source automated toolchains in architecture that meet and exceed the industry standard, Revit. Good overview on the state of art of both proprietary and open source architecture workflows, applied to Seed Home 2 - a 1000 sf house that you can build for $50k with a friend in one week. https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/wiki/Seed_Eco-Home_Interest_List. We plan on offering turnkey builds at around the $130k price point including land.

-----------------
What you see here at Open Source Ecology is an ambitious open source project for the common good. Join our development team:

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE_Developers

We run One Day Extreme Build workshops in many locations. Please put yourself on our map if you'd like us to host a workshop near you:

https://microfactory.opensourceecology.org/request-a-workshop/

Take a minute to subscribe to our email newsletter (updates, workshops, etc): http://bit.ly/1LtcM44

A

Excellent, so um yeah.

B

A

Taking the time that.

B

That's good! This.

A

Is exactly the kind of documents we want to generate in terms of the building documents, so everyone can replicate so yeah. That's right on.

C

Right, so um I think it was interesting what you said about trying to pair up with entrepreneurs to I'll say kind of do the permit processing it. I I think that's a good idea. um I think if people are willing to learn uh drafting software, it's very doable. That's not rocket science, um but if that is not their cup of tea, um getting someone to basically finish off a 80 to 90 percent. Complete set shouldn't be that expensive. You know you don't have to hire an architect. You can get a drafts person and oh.

A

C

So it's not! um This is not. This is basically as simple as it gets in terms of something you need a building permit for, and I think if we can prepare the way and say: okay, here's your typical foundation details. Here's your typical connection, details, taylor's your typical roof details.

C

What's going to be left are the customization, so they're gonna have to do a little site plan that is unique to their property. um They will have to do any specific things that are unique to their jurisdiction, so yeah um for california, you're gonna have to do what's called a title. 24 report: it's for energy compliance.

C

um Some cities have their own. You know little bells and whistles they'll want you to do and that's kind of impossible to plan for um yeah in terms of exactly what it is, but if you can get a boilerplate set that is kind of fill in the blank spots, that's going to ease your way through the plan check, process immensely and what's really nice about these.

C

Those adu sets is that they're they're, basically opening it up um yeah to everyone, and so um typically, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a non-copyrighted version of all those notes, all those details, and now you know, for instance, I couldn't share my firm's standard notes with you in good conscience. Like those are copyrighted proprietary stuff, I would get in trouble, um but accounting of san diego just gave it to us for free, so yeah. No, that's.

A

That's really good.

D

A

Yeah yeah, so the distinction.

D

A

Architect and drafts person- that's right and the way we're looking at it is. We want to have like the whole package. We're trying to set up is education at all levels. So here you get the just the craft craftsperson, the builder, here's you, you might have a thing.

E

I was looking at the design track.

A

Which you now made the distinction between architecture and draft drafting so somewhere.

B

A

Between but we can get into that in our education and another track for the entrepreneurial route, which is more about here's, how you run a business doing this, so yes, we want to cover like we're. Looking at, like my mind, is kind of reframing. This is literally like a tech school and the higher levels of this tech school would be. Okay, so say you take the first three months, which is about just the technical details of building and carpentry.

A

Along with that, you can take the track for uh design the drafting or close to architecture like we.

D

A

Architecture, but we could call it something else, um and then people other people can continue on to ongoing training after that, which would be more towards okay, here's, the osc training for collaborative literacy, here's how you actually would start up an operation based on osc work and so forth. So yeah it could be a continuum uh starting like with a tech, school idea.

C

Yeah is it um yeah.

A

C

The drafting bit- you know this is kind of best case scenario for rafting there's, not a lot of high-end coordination, difficult stuff. These are you know, walls and balls and joists. Oh, this is a nice easy building here, you're, not trying to figure out how an elevator works in this thing. You know this.

B

C

You know um yeah, so one one thing I had started looking into some open source drafting programs. um What um so the issue is that I'm used to working in a suite of very, very expensive, very, very proprietary stuff. What.

D

Are they called, what do you, what the.

C

Professionals use well, I use something called autodesk revit, okay um and it is a three-dimensional um bim program, um so it is I'd, say that's kind of top-tier, mostly industry, standard for architecture.

C

That being said, you do not need to do this. Building in 3d um a 2d program would suffice wonderfully let.

A

Me show you this. Let me actually um share my screen with you, but we are generating like.

A

Let me let me share.

A

um I want to show you what we're doing on that front because actually, between sweet home, 3d and freecad we're getting a full set of 3d cad on this. So um just.

B

Want to show you.

A

Just for reference, so let me see where's the screen share. The screen oh share, so take a look at so we have our seed home to 3d cad. So I am actually doing. Let me open up a file for you, then like say you take the window. The eight foot window here.

A

On the desktop and then open up, the cad.

A

um So I am actually doing doing stuff like this, where I'm actually getting a full blm generation from this, because every so I can hide this. All the details like like the all.

D

B

Details are there like, okay, so.

A

um Actually, seam, okay flashing, I'm just stripping it down. We've got the insulation in there. I even got things like details like the that's: a represent placeholder for the the sil tape. I actually gonna use this corner like the uh those corners on the bottom of the detail, like the drip cap, like all that, so the way this is I'm doing this here is in a part tree.

A

Everything is itemized, so I I run a little script that generates me a full actually, a complete summed up bill of materials from this, so we are getting.

B

A

And then uh katarina on her side, she's got. Let me open up sweet home 3d, so we do have. um Let me see.

A

So sweet home 3d so just to show you what the open source industry standards are here, but in sweet home 3d. Now I can open up yeah.

B

So this is our model and.

A

And sweet home, where we.

B

A

Likewise, have the ability to do the full, you know the full thing.

B

So katrina's actually doing this.

A

As a technical model, so actually the parts in here, even though this is more like an interior design,.

E

A

E

All the things in.

A

Here are actually technically technically correct, with a proper um um yeah. If you look in there like this, is your kitchen, like this kind of like what you.

B

A

B

Dimensions are.

A

In there, so this is actually technically quite correct and uh between the two like, for example, when you saw this so the the girl in there and uh let's see the.

A

B

Like this thing here, that's a rendering from.

A

B

We've got this kind of a.

A

Capacity like right now.

C

So let me open up something on my end.

C

Here we go um so, first of all that that's awesome, I think that's that's very cool um and I think that will help, but people, particularly that aren't used to looking at formalized building plans, really understand things and I think really they're kind of freak had really nitty gritty when you're you'll be showing you how to actually put it together, how to build it in a much more robust way than typical building plans.

C

So you know typical building plans are meant for professional builders, so if I show a section and show how the flashing goes, I assume the person putting the flashing on has done this for 10 years. They know how to put in flashing if I show it where it is. That's enough.

D

C

Get that function, you've, gotta, assume you're working with newbies um and so we're gonna do a lot more, which I think is great to have that kind of level of detail. But this is a question: can either of them um still provide what I'd call documentation?

C

So, uh yes, you've got 3d model, but if I need to turn in dimensioned floor plans or sections to the building department, can you get me a pdf with those details cranked out of those programs? That's what I was having trouble kind of realizing how to shoot with details. The.

A

Way, I understand the best way to do it in the open source tool chain is there's inkscape. So that's.

B

A

Thing so that's um let me share my screen again here, but.

D

A

So inkscape is your vector, graphics, okay program, so let's see and we were getting into like looking at how people are using inkscape potentially for architecture.

A

um But let me show you another link here on my log: it's about free. Let's see free cad.

A

Sweet home, free, blender.

A

No, let's see so, let's look at inkscape for for architecture.

A

Yeah like what we want to do is so, let's open this one and escape hatchfield patterns in inkscape, lankscape, 101.

A

B

So things like.

E

B

Symbols, library.

A

Usable for but.

B

I mean what you're talking about.

E

Is really okay: here's uh yeah.

A

Full pdf, I.

E

See it as google docs.

A

B

A

Inkscape and uh whatever we can get out of freecad there's.

D

A

Bim capacity and.

E

Let me show you: what's available.

A

A

B

Of blender there's people there's actually a bim plugin for blender.

A

um So let me see.

A

E

D

D

Libraries in the nation.

D

Well, let's see what we got: um where is this bi house stuff.

C

Yeah so after we're going to um so I've I bumped into inkscape before but surely it's just kind of vector you know.

A

Okay, so this is this kind of stuff.

C

Yes, so that exactly that stuff.

C

A

How is this done here? This is uh this.

E

Is from freecad forum- and this has been generated out of free.

A

Cat and some inkscape, I believe, okay.

B

And this is blender bin add-on.

A

Demo, like section plans right you put this into the plain button. This.

C

Will create a new.

A

Empty object at.

C

The 3d cursor location.

A

Click the remove section plane button yeah, so this kind of stuff.

C

Yeah again, that's that looks like overkill for us. You know yeah, um but yes, then that was my concern. um We've got it kind of got two parallel tracks. One is what you were showing really to get it. uh You know, take off showing people how it's built, etc, but.

E

C

You know this package should probably only be a few sheets total for getting through the plan check process.

A

So so question here, so the full package like, for example, for.

B

The encinitas example.

A

B

Not what you submit for.

A

The building package.

C

That is yeah um yeah, that that would do it. So that's got um that had mechanical electrical on it as well. You know you don't, um but you'll see that their details for construction are not. You know uh very instructive they're just this is what we're doing um so. What I, what I see is you having that to check your boxes, get your permit, but then a much more robust kind of library to explain to people actually how to build this. um They are. You know uh intermeshed in terms of usefulness, but um here.

A

Can I share my screen yeah yeah, so I.

B

A

Just went to the.

B

Website, so maybe um yeah, so it's like the answer is we need all that stuff.

A

C

Right, yeah, the um so.

B

C

A random project that I have, um but so we have you know the fancy dancing model, but at the end of the day what actually gets turned in are um just very basic sheets with notes and things.

C

So um this doesn't have the details sheets on it, but all sections yeah. um But anyway it's you know you're just showing bits and pieces. So it it's good for good enough for a professional builder, but not necessarily for a first time build.

A

C

Just as a note, the model that we're.

A

Doing is uh here's.

C

B

That for novice builders, but also like we have documentation that.

A

The pro can take it and just run with it as well. Yeah.

B

C

The I I to that extent, I would ask the question: um why would a pro do your system.

A

Well, okay, so here's the use case, so we.

B

We provide a package.

A

For people to build- and they have.

B

A number of options on their plate, they can say I'm gonna, take the osc course.

A

uh Go in for a few weeks of the.

B

Summer, learn the basic skills.

A

If, if someone feels confident enough, they can actually build it completely themselves, but.

D

B

Other thing is what.

D

The way we're looking.

A

At is, we don't think that most people will be in a position to do the work themselves.

D

That the diy market.

E

D

Can fairly say that.

A

That market will be much smaller than a person who will hire others to do it so.

B

How do you get others to.

A

Do it well one you can send them to our course and they can build for you or you can give this the set of plans to a contractor or a builder.

B

Or you basically, the the person who took our course.

A

uh Knows enough about it to kind of manage to build themselves, but they're hiring people to do that, and we want to enable them to to go to professionals.

E

Like say, here's a.

A

Foundation, contract or a carpenter.

B

And also do that as well.

A

E

Make that possible.

A

E

Easy for all these different.

B

A

C

I that makes sense to me. I I think my one one concern would be that the panelization yeah is very slick. If you're going to be, you know, building panels yourself or having a team build individually, yeah.

D

C

If you can hire a framer just have them frame a wall, it's going to be cheaper and easier. You know um so that I worry about that. I think it's a great asset to be able to kind of break down your building into smaller, manageable chunks.

C

But if you have the ability to hire a framer, you'll have less studs, less effort, less tie downs, just a conventionally framed wall, all the other efficiencies that you guys worked out, you know are really dialed in you know: um utility chase things like that yeah still totally viable, but while we're hiring a framer, I wouldn't mess with the panelization. If I were doing myself, I think it's an awesome idea, but if I were hiring a framer frame, a wall, they know how to do it. It's cheap.

D

C

Just something.

D

A

We're we're we're definitely thinking about that, and what we want to do is we want to actually show side by side. This is the data from each route in terms of cost and time and effort and skill required. So that's probably something we will do in the summer session, which is going to be in september of this year, because.

D

Right now, we're just.

A

Building we're currently building the house right here right now, using the panelized model and getting all the data from that we're.

E

Going to do another.

A

One it looks like what we're going to be doing is another one in texas, where it's warm and we can actually go there like next month or something and do it, but also replicate to see if this, this data that we got here is replicable and then we'll after that. So so that's like the main package, the panelized construction, which allows the owner builder to do that and.

B

Of course, you can still.

A

Hire people you're saying that it might be more expensive, as opposed to regular framing, but we actually want to take that data point like get really rigorous data on that. Okay, what exactly is the cost? How much difference is it? Is it like five percent? Is it fifty percent uh right.

C

D

E

A

Full informed choice of how to do it, yeah.

C

I I as long as you're, aware of it, I think, that's yeah, going with your eyes open to that one. Yeah yeah yeah.

A

Because that's good.

C

Wall is super intimidating for a one or two person. You know team, but yeah framing the 408 panel much you know.

A

Much more durable, yeah, exactly and and there's also the issue of resistance from the industry like people, uh the.

B

A

Standard people they'll be like no we're, not gonna build your pounds like right now. I actually think because.

E

A

The way um no, I mean I can't I can't make any solid predictions, but, but all I can say is that we also know that there is just a resistance, like you won't be able to get some carpenters to do. They're gonna, just tell you like. No, this is ridiculous.

A

Perhaps so you have to be ready for that.

C

I I agree um yeah, uh I I think they would be confused for sure at very least.

C

I think your goal and I think you've succeeded- is not to be a one-trick pony. The panelizations is nice, but there's a lot of other. You know well thought out bits of it too. So have those in there. So you know it's not it's not like. Oh, this is worthless. If you don't do panelization, oh right, so back to the the cad thing. So the one thing I I'll look into inkscape, um so my worry was basically um uh let me just pull up a pdf doing something with the menu.

C

um So um what's that.

A

There are still open source 2d, cad.

B

A

Like there's one.

B

C

So I was looking at leapercad.

C

That seemed to be kind of what I was seeing is um the most straightforward, at least in 2d.

B

C

Typically, you are doing um details um to a certain scale and that scale is going to change um oops, this sort of bunch of stuff based on something. So you know this is how to do a door header at this particular thing, and this is at a scale. Three inches equals a foot, but on that same page,.

A

And this is a print out or is this a.

C

Decimal, this is yeah that I'm looking at now, but this it comes as a direct export from that program called revit, um but the the way most of the I'll say more professional software works um is there's kind of two layers. There's the drafting view where you're really grafting and then a sheet view, and that sheet view allows you to put things at different scales.

C

So I can set this detail at one and a half inches equals a foot and the detail divided at six inches equals a foot and the detail beside it at three quarters and equals yeah so depending on which way, and that that I don't know if we can, when I was looking at labor dad it had some stuff, but it was.

C

uh It seemed like you could, set up a title block for one size sheet of paper and then set your scale at one thing, but it wouldn't give you the flexibility, um and that gets a little tricky in that for one job you'd at least on a few different scales.

C

So you would want to scale for your site plan your floor plans and then maybe you go over really good and did all your details at three inches equals a foot which is probably the most common, but now you're now having to mess with three different or four different title blocks on different levels.

C

It seemed far from ideal.

C

Librecast setup is great, for if you are drafting up a part, you know your little widget yeah and you have one of those good, but when you've got a building- and you know this is what we need, but you're nonetheless going to have you know a dozen sheets or so with different drawings on them.

C

So I don't look into all. I will look into inkscape again. I haven't looked at that for architecture, so I'll see, but I'd love to kind of recommend something to you of like hey. This is this is the route I would do yeah.

C

Ideally, what you can do is you give everyone a a pdf copy of this, but also an editable copy, and so they can change the title block to put in you know name of their project where it's addressed, yada yada, um and then they can tweak things, but at least you get them a boilerplate, yeah and and that that would be very handy.

C

But I don't. I don't know what to tell you quite yet in terms of what um what makes sense, yeah I'll look at I'll try to do some digging.

E

What are the image formats here like is this working is revit working with scalable, vector, graphic formats, or just like straight to pdf,.

C

Yeah so the uh well, um it is straight to pdf, but um basically the way revit works is you. You model things in true one to one scale, so I'll pull this on. So this is a window on a 6560. If I change that it truly would change to be a different size, but then you have what are called views. So this is the real model, that's what I'm actually modeling, but then I take view of it.

C

So I can take an elevation and basically take a picture of it from the side and then add annotations onto it. So I can do sections or color call outs or yada yada.

C

Those views are then placed on sheets at a certain scale. So this this is kind of a view that is independent and then I literally drag and drop it onto a sheet. That is, this. Title block is set up to print for archie. One size paper says um 30 by 42 inch, size paper.

C

um We everything goes to pdf, but the pdf is it's. It's is a it is vector. You know you can zoom in on this. All you want, um but you know when you're not editing these, um uh as as line work, the details you can edit is line work, but again it's back in revit, so revit has a full kind of detailing suite, um so you can do all sorts of lines or patch regions and stuff um and they're all obviously dimensioned. So you can make this two inches exactly and we got it.

C

But I think the trick will be trying to get the best usability um out of the open source options. We've got so.

C

What I'm not seeing is that kind of dual system where you have the sheet views and the um the actual model stuff, and so uh let me see if I have it the thing yeah here. So this is what I exported for you. um This will take a second to load, but um it is, they have the editable file, but it's it's not I'll, say amateur friendly um I'll show you what I mean in a second, but again, autocad does the same thing.

C

They have kind of the model view and then the sheet views- and that is.

A

So here um let me just tell you real quick what is available if you look at my screen, uh let me share my screen for a sec.

A

D

E

A

B

Do have is this: this is out.

A

Of freecad, you can do this, uh you can extract dimensions, you can draw these arrows and you can have all the different isometric views. um This is for a part. um So that's the only transition between you got your 3d cad and then your your 2d cross sections and things.

C

I think that's possible what what that limits. You, though, is one one scale per sheet right.

C

Whoa just wanted to infinity right. There.

A

So that's right: there is no tool that I know of right now that can do that. What you're saying.

C

B

Try to share my screen again.

C

Oh so this is that the do you see right here how this kind of looks like gobbling glue, because it's overlapping?

C

What they've done is you can filter things based off of the layers, so you can turn some layers off and some layers on, and so this is the model. This is the actual drafting, but then they have a floor plan view, and in this view, so this is a view right here. I've just highlighted.

C

In that view they turn off all the ceiling stuff. All the electrical stuff um and so same thing is that there they can have these different views to include the door and schedule where um it looks like in free cabin. I think in libra cat as well the all this all this basically has to be on the same in the same place, and so it's going to be at the same scale, um but that is not the end of the world, um but it's it gets a little tricky.

C

um Eventually, though, um what we can do is just walk through this, and I'd be more than happy to do. This basically just highlight and cross out the things that you need and things you don't so a lot of these are needed, but some of them like this is just trying to be the end all for everything. If you have a rolling shower all these notes like well, you don't probably don't need that for a lot of.

A

B

You send a link to this.

A

To this pdf that you have right now.

C

Exactly so that that's the um that's the cad file, I tried to export as a dxf, because the ifc wasn't working for you. Have you been able to open them.

A

C

But I don't wasn't working.

A

C

Yeah, so the problem is, you should be able to get um the model. You should be able to get this, but what I doubt you're going to be able to get which is kind of the cleaner neater version of everything are the layouts. So you don't have these layout tabs, um and so this gets you a lot more info, um but that being said, you still have the pdfs, uh so you can still cut and paste the text, which is really probably the most useful thing, uh is one I'd say a guide to okay.

C

This is this is basically what you'll need to get uh permitted. um So this level of detail, you can see it's not much like you. Don't nothing crazy, um like that. Like this, this is very california specific you're not going to need that in 98 of your projects. So don't worry about that, um but you, you probably are going to need, addict ventilation, calculations or actually no, you guys are doing unvented attic so scratch that, but.

A

Actually uh so I just open librecad.

E

B

A

Up your your file.

E

A

But freecad doesn't but librecat does so. I do have that and it does appear to have layers. So that's good.

C

A

um Yeah, so so the way we're you so with revit, you have the automated workflow. For that I mean the only thing we can do right now and that's why we're actually gonna do the the hackathon that we're working on and.

B

A

A group of people working on it together in a live editable docs, so that one person or a few people are not.

D

A

A master cad and then doing it all themselves. We can have a large team using multiple tools and then coordinate that into a live editable crowd, editable dock. So if you have a basic level of understanding of how that all goes together, yeah you can you can do it. um It's a swarm kind of base method. Tell me a little bit more about how say you have your master, cad and revit. How many people? How do you divide the workflow in there?

A

Is it possible to also work as a group of designers on it or what are the limits to that and.

C

Things so yes, um revit has what's called work sharing and um but.

B

C

It's very revit specific, but basically they have what's called a central file and that is hosted somewhere um for our company. It's on a server, but you can also have cloud hosting um and when you you want to start working on the file um you open the file, but what you're doing is not necessarily entering into the central file you're, creating local copy. So when you open the file, you create a local copy on your your workstation.

C

You then begin to work on that, but, as you work on something so say, I click on this window and I want to change that window. Oh you can't see me, but um you can imagine so I click on that window.

C

uh I in essence check out that window, um and so as soon as I click on it, an instantaneous little ping goes from my computer to the central model that says. Elijah now owns this window and anyone else in the model can no longer click on that window. It's it's locked for them, so I'm messing with that and once I'm done doing whatever I was doing, uh I click up here and go synchronize with central and what that does is it uploads and downloads.

C

So any of the changes I make get pushed to the central file and, at the same time, any changes that other people have already pushed to the central get re-downloaded to my model yeah, and so we we sync up. um It gets tricky when there's a lot of people on it. uh Generally, we try to keep our teams still like, let's say five-ish or so.

C

If I'm trying to sink and you're trying to sink at the same time, you'll get errors and I'll say central model is busy.

C

That being said,.

C

That this program is like several thousand dollars a seat per year. um I don't know if you're gonna get anywhere near that functionality from any free, open source option like that. That's a pretty high level functionality to expect from an open source program, in my opinion, mom, so uh think.

C

Maybe you you can back it up a step, and you know there is maybe a everybody's drafting on their own, but they are then uploading their final detail up to a you know: um editable live document or something, but I think it's going to be tricky to be all in the same model. At the same time,.

A

Yeah, actually so the.

B

A

Let me show you my screen and show you how we do it right now, so you can get a reference point and.

A

Where is my share screen so.

D

Let's go say for.

B

A

To this seat home to cad, so what is feasible? We just get this visual part library.

D

B

Files are here so the idea is you take your.

A

Your house and break it up into known modules, so you do the module breakdown and you have to declare that up front and then.

D

B

D

A number of people like here.

B

You have say 10 modules.

D

A

10 people can work on each module and then what.

B

We like to have is a coordinator who, who would look at what everyone's working on.

A

And as and let's get get you an example, so you go into the eight foot window here so well, let's not take a look at that one. Let's take one. That's got a longer history like, for example, this.

E

A

It's got a whole.

E

A

History, so we're not liking any file. We're saying.

B

A

Who wants to work on this go ahead and we do reconciliation or merge conflict resolution at the very.

B

End so you can have a thousand people working on this file, the single file. They can just all be uploading and you.

A

Can make some comments and notes as far as what you've done? You know where the part fits all together in um in the final dock, but a lot of people are able to work together.

E

And the idea is that.

A

The first thing.

E

A

You just simply look at the version history.

E

And you see like okay, has anyone done work on top of my file or is.

B

There another compelling version to look at.

A

B

You can do that by.

A

D

We don't have a visual history, but through a visual history like as you go working forward, you kind.

B

Of take little snapshots of where, where you're at and what maybe like.

A

Say point to a change that was.

B

Made so it's visible, this is a visual history.

A

And then people can go on, but but we never lock anything down. It's an open process.

B

But at the end of the day it can make sense because.

A

E

A

In charge of the whole model can make the final reconciliations and the way um why we do that.

C

You do what manually revit does, but is somebody at the end of the day can still say? Okay,.

A

Yeah excellent.

C

A

Yeah yeah, you still have to have that.

E

Reconciliation step at the very end.

A

And um as long.

E

C

Let me play with free cat a little bit, um so this could work really really well for details, in my opinion that you break it down. You know: there's probably two dozen three dozen details you'll need altogether.

C

Have those all be separate items, don't have it as a.

B

C

File, yeah yeah, everybody works on those etc.

C

But then what I need to look at is: is there a easy or feasible way to at the end of the day, take all those individual you know uh drafted details and put them together on one piece of paper in a you know: efficient manner as long as there's a reasonable way to add them together.

C

I think that makes a lot of sense divvied up, because again you, depending on what you decide to do, maybe you're doing one story, so you don't need any of your stair details, so it doesn't really make sense to include those, so you can just go and clicks okay. I need to download this this this this this this and then you just basically arrange them on a sheet um yeah. I can see that working really well, um maybe there's a guide sheet of like hey.

C

This is what you typically need, but then you go kind of gather them yourself or that's a very interesting system. The.

A

Concept is that you're um you allow for.

B

An infinite number of forks.

A

Really, the idea.

B

A

Because you don't really know how something will work in practice, it's never really finished, and this is all the master cad file. You can't really say that until you prototype it, so the people who do the prototyping would have the merit or authority to say. Okay now we tested this like say here we do the build here. We say we took this module, we tested it. We built the assembly, we tested it, and this works for us.

A

Now we can say: okay, this is the master cad file, we're all drawing off the common common collaborative work. Now our version here may not be the one for texas, because they'll have a different foundation and other things, so people can make local forks and this allows an infinite number of derivatives to be made at the same time it's a distributed process.

A

So we focus on the idea that you can completely fork it everywhere and distribute the effort for many different versions at the same time, so you don't get into governance conflicts of of oh, who is the master here? We're letting everybody have autonomy on what they're going to build the.

E

Individual in authority.

A

Is the guy that actually builds it and says oh yeah, this works and it's tested. This is legitimate.

C

Yeah yeah, I um I think you can take that uh method even into um the the notes which I you know that there's.

B

Going to be typical notes.

C

That work for 80 percent of the places, but then maybe you have a fork that has the california specific notes or the iowa specific notes or the cold region. You know insulated foundation, notes or something.

C

And then let everybody refine those to death and then you can just plug and play. I think, figuring out a way to grab and put on a sheet.

B

C

That's you gotta sort that out, um but if you've got a good system to do that, um I I think that'd be rad. You know.

A

C

A

C

Yeah, you know 50 60 of your set. You should be able to already have done, you know um and more, if you're, using a standard model in terms of the building, I can see people I bet you're gonna want in reality. I bet people are gonna. We're they're gonna want to customize a lot. If I had to guess like oh, can I get a this or I've got a funny shaped site? How about I add on in the back, so um I think, there's always going to be a bit of work.

C

You know you're, never going to quite get it exactly a rubber stamp of the building, but um 60 of it. You can't you know using the same roof, same foundation, same walls, etc.

C

And so the other refinement to get into is how the kind of plan check construction set interacts with like your more robust set, uh because in reality you really don't want to show more than you need to in the construction set, and the rule of thumb is the more you show the more they will mark up.

C

You want to show enough that shows you code compliance.

C

I think you're just going to invite a lot of headaches going through plan check if you give them the whole instruction manual yeah, so I think some way of intelligently linking you know if I've got a pdf set of construction plans and I'm looking at detail.

C

If there's you know some sort of code or something that links you back to the wiki that is like hey. This is how to actually install this window. Like yes, here's the detail that meets the code, compliance requirements, but here's the link to actually you know, go and watch a you know clip on how to do it or see a exploded three-dimensional diagram of the flashing whatever that might be. So I think interaction between those two would be really great.

C

Sorry, I'm dreaming, but I this is, this is fun.

A

No, that's that's right. Now we have to make a distinction between a process. So what we envision during the summer during the hackathon is we generate this map? It's it's a publication. It's the enterprise manual. It tells you about how.

B

A

It here's your how you generate the plans. How do you do redesigns and so forth? So would be a generative document with a good um like high quality document. That's well well organized and graphically well stylized and then.

D

A

You will be able to ex, like, of course, each house will be custom right, so you.

C

A

A person uh which we talked about, the the person who's, the drafts person or the so-called designer uh take a look at that and that's the kind of roles we're gonna be training for as well. So we can execute a bunch of these houses all over the states and so forth.

B

But one stage is: okay: here's our master document like this.

A

Enterprise manual.

B

A

Do you not only design a house but also run an enterprise.

B

A

It and here's the actual house build for specific clients, so very distinct phases.

B

C

Downloading free cat now.

B

C

We'll see how it goes, um yeah! No, it's very!

C

I I don't know I. I really hope this catches on. I think I talked with you way longer one of the first times we talked about how um it's always frustrating and kind of the architectural industry, how everything is locked down and proprietary.

C

You know I would never share with another firm our details, because you know we worked long and hard on those we're not going to give those up. Then yeah, oh, and so everyone does this, um but the world would have better waterproofing and better eaves, and things like that, if we got over ourselves and just were like this- is the best way to do it. You're like oh, that's, cool yeah, like the open source philosophy, is not at all sunk into professional architecture.

C

um You know it's really still very, very fringe.

A

Well, not all there is no single hardware endeavor in which this is firmly grounded, including.

B

A

B

Printing is the best example.

A

Of open source development but.

B

Even there are significant.

A

Limits to to the true potential yeah yeah, but it's I mean you're implying, isn't this obvious right.

B

Right, you know.

C

What what I, what I find frustrating is architects talk big talk, sometimes about this kind of greater good designing for the community as the whole yada yada.

B

C

And honestly, if we, if, if I could easily pick the best foundation transition detail from rigid insulation to stucco, to a foundation in the whole world,.

B

This is, this is the best.

C

We got and just click on it. I can spend more time designing like good, honest design like absolutely. I don't think I should necessarily be spending time recreating a detail or a system that somebody down the street did last year better than what I can come up with.

C

So it there's a disconnect between the business end of it and the um the high phone and talk of us, architects.

A

Yeah so yeah that's yeah.

C

A

Definitely a central theme that we're trying to overcome.

C

Well, I think it would be really great to get give this as an example of like hey. You know um where I see it. Just huge is in california, where it's so expensive from writing process is so arduous, like if you could show hey by putting it out there for free, it's better for everybody, yeah.

A

C

A

Are a great example of that already: that's it's great progress. There. That's super encouraging all those details.

C

A

C

Really is so what happened is there's just a huge.

B

C

Of legislation pushed trying to get more housing in california there's way too many people in two feet: houses and these adus- are this great kind of back door way to build a bunch of units. um So you don't need to hire a developer to build a hundred units. You just make it a little easier and that neighborhood adds 100 units by itself through incentive.

C

You know private incentives, yeah and so communities got funding grants to basically encourage development, and some of them are using these grants to hire an architect to create standardized adu plans. So it's really great. My company is actually going after a few now, so I might, I might have some more for you in the future. um You know standard plans like that, um but it's very interesting is right. Now, there's a bunch of people that make a lot of money, drafting up adus and now cities are giving them away for free and they're.

C

That, of course, has caused some friction. Oh, but it's like guys. You want to put a little granny flat in your backyard. This is not a custom, you know you're, not building a mansion in bel air, like you, don't need it all custom. You can buy something off the shelf like you're, going to put ikea in it. So why are you getting? You know rolls-royce if you're going to put an ikea inside so just make it all ikea. It should be off the shelf. You.

A

Know tell me about the friction that has caused.

C

ah So there are drafters um that specialize in small, I don't say easy, but minor projects. So um my firm's on the bigger end. We don't really do a lot of adus.

B

C

We do it because a client relationship or something but they're they're, quick, fast and don't make a lot of money. So they're not really are something we do. But if you are a small independent, you know. Typically one person, operation, they're, really nice, you make a couple thousand dollars drafting them up. It's not very hard, not a lot of liability.

C

Now, because they're being put up there for free people are using the free ones or are at least starting to and they're out of work, that's the friction they're mad because their their livelihood is being taken away by a pdf um yeah, but it's tough so that that program rabbit I was showing you know like. We always talk about automation, taking out jobs and stuff. That program, I would say a well-trained person. Revit is three to four people well trained in a standard drafting software.

C

A

Does your, what are you comparing it to what is standard drafting software.

C

Autocad, so autocad is kind of industry standard for 2d drafting.

C

So autodesk is the company that owns probably 90 of the architecture, engineering software, so um they do revit inventor um 3d, autocad, autocad architectural desktop, um my just about any of the very expensive higher end engineering and architecture. Softwares are owned by autodesk, but they're kind of flagship drafting is autocad, but autocad. It's it's way better than hand drafting, because you can organize it and edit delete it very fast. But for the most part it is still drawing lines just faster, but going to the 3d world, I basically program a wall type.

C

I say: okay, I want this siding this little insulation, this sheathing these studs, this drywall. Then I draw that wall and it looks like lines on the paper. But it's not it's a bit of building information, so that has insulation built into it thermal.

C

um You know, properties reflectivity on the outside and it doesn't just draw out intuitive. I set the height how it attaches the top and bottom so in the 2d world. Somebody would have to draw the lines then said: okay, great floor plan draw section. They would have a draw section, a great section. Can you draw me an elevation that would have drawn elevation?

C

I draw a good floor plan. My sections elevations roof plan, they're, basically done because I've I had to put a little more time thinking in the beginning, but it's it's all there. All I'm now doing is taking snapshots. Well, I bring that up. Is the efficiency is skyrocketed so over the last, like 10 years as people really moved to rabbit most three-dimensional modeling, the amount of drafters in architectural firms has dropped because one it takes more knowledge to use revit. You gotta actually understand a little bit more about building to do things correctly.

C

So somebody with a you know a little summer course and drafting.

B

C

High school typically isn't getting hired anymore, we're looking for people with five six years of upper level, architectural training, those tend to be better at rabbit, but so this program has in essence, stolen thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs from the architectural industry. You know a robot hasn't taken my job per se, but a program has greatly diminished the amount of people needed to do the same work that it did ten years ago.

C

um So, while I feel for these drafters losing their job to the pdf, it's tough out there um same thing is happening to the architects too. You know this program is eliminating the need for lots of knees out there um and we're not even we're scratching the surface and the ai stuff coming down. The pike is scary, um so a lot of like what I do is multi-family residential or you get a site, and we try to figure out how many units we can squish in there um the most part it's trial and error.

C

It's like okay! If we have the parking lots, this big, how many units can I squish? What if I turn it this way? Can I squish a few more units in there? um Well, you know it's way better at doing that than me a computer, so a huge amount of what I will do now is going to be obsolete. I would say definitely within 10 years, but maybe within five yeah.

C

So anyway I'll talk about uh it's all, changing it's all changing fast. So so, let's talk about positive solutions here, so I.

A

Think in terms of the automation workflows, I.

B

Think the answer right there is freecad because.

A

You can write python scripts and we can.

B

Reprogram it to do whatever you like so.

A

Take your your.

B

House 3d model, so we generate that okay plug-in, generate elevations, etc, so, basically breakdown. Maybe what we want to do is identify the very.

A

Specific tasks that we need to do.

B

And we can get that programmed up relatively.

A

Easily, so maybe you can help by uh guiding that process. I I I definitely wanna.

C

Yeah, uh I would love.

B

C

Him automated but yeah for yes, it's there is a. There is a playbook and if you can program that playbook awesome awesome.

C

So like in in revit, you know you're kind of manly, saying okay, I want an elevation, so take a picture from this angle. A roof plant is taking picture. Looking down, the section is taking a picture from halfway in it. That's all yeah, but if you can automate okay, take these 12 pictures and put them on sheets. That's hours.

A

C

Yeah absolutely.

A

So the how we're going to do that.

B

So I mentioned the hackathon this.

D

Is exactly what we we can do in a hackathon like that, we will invite a bunch of programmers.

E

And set them up with.

A

E

A

A task queue of all these individual.

C

Things so as we go forward.

A

Into the future, we we can when we whenever we find people, we can start.

B

Implementing these.

D

Tasks or save some of that for for the big hackathon.

A

And rally around that is now we're getting really good open source architecture uh into the thing. So.

B

What is the playbook.

C

So I would say the playbook is that pdf, that's a that's a great playbook, um so um I can go through it and kind of note up some things. That I'll say are red herrings, that you are california specific or things that I just don't think would actually be applicable to the seed home.

C

But in general, um if you flip, through that you're going to have a site plan, you're going to have a floor plan, you're going to have elevations you're going to have a window schedule, you're going to have a door schedule, you're going to have sections you're going to have a roof plan, you're going to have a ventilation plan uh and then you're gonna have details.

C

Then you're gonna get into some structural stuff. So you're gonna have a foundation plan, a framing plan, framing details and for electrical you're gonna have a switch and lighting layout and then our um is a power layout and a lighting layout. Sometimes you can do them at the same time, but you have those mechanical not too much for these um you're gonna have to show basically your mechanical system and your fence.

C

um So go those few things um that that will get you through it, but.

D

E

A

Have a note document in a google presentation thing: can you can you maybe um use that and start you you're familiar with google presentations.

D

Yeah, can you use that to take more notes and maybe um use that document right there as a start.

C

Yeah, can you send it send me a link.

A

Yeah, it's in the chat box.

A

So we just took a few notes for today, um but yeah. If you can, um let's do that and.

D

A

How much we can take this is the existing capacity of freecad and here's. What kind of script so maybe there's macros or you can have entire workbenches like, for example, we have designed a workbench to design 3d printers within freecad already, so we can do that kind of stuff and almost low hanging fruit.

C

Yeah huh that that sounds awesome yeah, that's pretty exciting yeah.

D

No, this is great.

C

Let me let me start outlining things um and go again dodge the bullet. My my free time is ah intermittent due to uh the toddler and the infant, um but this is fun. Yeah.

D

A

um Do you think you can scrounge up three days so so in september, in august, we will.

B

A

Day around august 18, or so, where we do, this uh 2 000 person hackathon, which is highly coordinated across all the different tasks. It's.

C

Going to be the.

A

The greatest thing.

C

Whatever you have that's a lot of people, that's.

A

Awesome yeah: that's like our next major major initiative to show okay, we can actually get a lot of people coordinated around a very important project that produces significant results like okay, here's a house model, that's okay! This is one that you can replicate.

B

D

A

B

So that's an interesting proposition and and.

A

We're trying to gather people up and the idea is that we we select a weekend and we say: okay, can you commit 24 hours in one weekend so over friday, saturday sunday, and we get a lot of this, this kind of stuff done.

A

um So that's that's kind of what we're we're aiming for in august to move forward significantly on this yep.

C

Yeah well, um send me the invite. uh I have no idea what august holds for me, but yeah anything like last few months I'll be around not going anywhere so.

D

Yeah yeah, no, that's great.

A

That's great yeah.

D

As you said, the.

A

Idea of you know a lot of people getting around a common problem so that everyone can move on to the next thing, like you mentioned about people being scared about all this automation, but the real question is well: what do we are do with our ample spare free time? No, I mean what do we convert this to? Can we actually start evolving as people and do more meaningful things.

E

Because now we have the time it's like people.

B

D

A

D

B

Create a world where.

A

People welcome that kind of a an opportunity.

C

I know I in my kind of california perspective but yeah if I could get a house for fifty thousand dollars like a hundred thousand dollars um that would free up immeasurable amounts of my time absolutely yeah. I would not be working a very stressful, more than full-time job right now, if I could basically have free housing um and same with my wife, you know like that would be such a huge advantage. So if people could see some of the payoffs like no, this really makes a big difference.

B

A

Oh, absolutely I mean yeah number one. I mean clearly the number one cost in people's lives. That's housing, yeah, yeah,.

C

So yeah it's a big deal and- and I think uh I think going international with it too makes a whole lot of sense. um You know, obviously things are going to be different in different places. um Yeah I've done some like schoolwork stuff in sub-saharan africa. It kills me they they don't have lightweight framing there, um and so it's expensive and slow and bad.

B

C

It's like, oh man. I wish I could just send you a stack of two by fours, like you do much better, um but yeah yeah uh opportunities.

A

Yeah, I I think about that, sometimes, like so what's to be said about places where so simply what they don't have. They don't have a lot of lumber there right.

D

A

And that's it so you have to work with more local methods. Do you see any substitutes for that? Do you see any any game-changing things that could actually address that issue of lightweight framing.

C

I I don't know, I'm certainly far from an expert the so I was working with this charity called building tomorrow, and um it was right when I was getting out of school and I helped them um to design kind of a standard school model.

B

C

They were really into um compressed earthquakes, yeah. um It was this cool thing where they wanted to. um You know they try to get sort of like sweat, equity from the community, and that was a big thing um that everybody could press.

C

First, you know the kids, the women, everybody could come down and squish a brook machine, and so in theory, was this going to be this great thing uh in practice, people actually laying the bricks, one of like all the bricks on day one, so they could get going um and would much rather just like buy a stack of bricks than these crumbly bricks that showed up some days some days there wasn't a big pile of bricks, ready for um yada yada um and the quality was cool.

C

um So the organization basically said we're not doing this again. um They had to use a lot more mortar because the uh compressed bricks weren't great- and it was just like this- is dumb- we're buying bricks. It's not that expensive, we're! Okay, um I I think this is like tantamount of the you know, idealism verse reality and it's just tough sometimes um so it was one example, but I know it, it went poorly and it put a bad taste in that charity's mouth for using compressor for this.

C

um Their their biggest innovation, though, was not technological at all. They got a fundraising pipeline system down, pat, so they worked with us. Colleges basically would create campus clubs.

C

Those campus clubs would turn into these little fundraising machines and then that campus club would actually get a school of their own, and so it's very satisfying you know like. I can still look on the website and like oh, I did that school. You know uh that was their big thing. It wasn't technological, it wasn't, you know, have anything to do with building.

C

They figured out a good system for scalability and fundraising. What organization is this called building tomorrow? You, google them.

E

C

I said guy worked over there. I think when he was real young and very much like why. Why are these schools so crappy huh and and the cost of building this is laughable. I think it was like 20 000 or something to go to school. Like you know, in my world, that's a kitchen renovation for one of my clients like that's not you know much at all, so um he basically figured out a way to work with um some kind of local school districts and get it going.

D

What you know the guys from they're from indiana.

C

So there's I I went to school in indiana. That's how you anticipate.

A

Yeah, uh that's very interesting and something that we can consider as well as far as a good model of success are the schools actually working, I mean so they can hire teachers and the program is a good one or.

C

As far as I know I, um the year after me, some kids from my college group went and they squished some bricks. But as far as I know, it is a working model. um You can look at kind of digging deep, but have I done a?

C

I personally have not done a real, thorough, uh deep dive into their system, but they seem to be still moving and shaking. So that's.

A

Interesting, oh just one thought it's I I I'm laughing like as you talk about the bricks but yeah I I do understand some of the challenges and I do believe also that automation is, I think, a good solution.

B

To that, because right now we're doing stick frame.

A

Housing, but with the the only missing link for us, is a a good sole mixer where we can make stabilized block. That's got some concrete in there, so they're waterproof, but that's the last machine we're gonna have to develop, but we are planning on doing the the model that we're doing right now, also with sweat, equity and bricks as well right.

C

Yeah yeah, I don't think they were uh doing the cement stabilization. I think these were true ah just compressed yep, um but you should see the bricks the the fire bricks they use are, uh I would say, not up to uh uh antsy standards in the us for sure they're, they're, crumbly.

C

But, but for the most players these are replacing like tin, shack school rooms, so it's they're better than that. You know.

B

C

A

Are they still are they still using they're using the fire bricks right now? That's so good.

B

A

Yeah, maybe they'd be interested in some automated brick pressing. I don't know if that would be a work in that context, but it might be interesting.

C

Maybe I I think the logistics of getting your press out there be a challenge but they're, mostly working in kind of one area of uganda, so I could see you can get it in the back of a pickup truck.

C

Maybe the company just owns it and drives it around to their different school sites.

B

C

Anyway, something to keep in mind here.

B

A

C

All right, well, I I should be getting back. My wife is on double kid duty at the moment, um but let me go through I'll start kind of making some notes and stuff. I think my where I think I can be most useful. Let me kind of outline a um for say a standard set.

D

C

Would be great what you would need and then um maybe I can kind of mark up the encinitas set as an example of you know, these are good notes um like what I can do is start thinking about it in in modules. um I really, I think, that's going to be very successful. So, like yeah, you're gonna want some site notes, site notes can be a module. These are standard site notes. Here you go.

A

Yeah, almost to the point, okay point by point: we can fill in okay. This is for us yeah.

B

C

um I I would like some kind of end in mind of how how this all is physically compiled onto a sheet. um So let me play with freecad too to see if there's a way to do that.

A

um Yeah think about so so google docs are the crowd, editable version. So if we, if we can make it into google presentations, that means a lot of people can be working on. We can generate a set like that in rapid time, so be the ideal way to do.

B

A

We can still export the pdfs out of out of google docs, so I think that might be a good solution.

C

Okay, so it would go from drafting software, say free cab to a are you going to have to go to a rasterized image or.

A

C

A scalable vector, graphics,.

A

C

Okay, so you can export some sort of uh a scalar vester graphics from freehand.

A

That would be from inkscape from the we have a workflow where we go from freecad and we actually use inkscape to generate the scalable vector images from freecad drafts.

A

Okay, we have that capacity.

C

And then and then we can put those on a google.

A

Google yeah just cut and paste and if it's got a transparent background and it's scalable um yeah, that's that's legit katrina was doing some uh documents where she's just putting a a scale. There's some functionality within google docs. Actually, where you can draw a scale up to the document you can, you can just add a scale to it. um I don't.

B

Know the details.

A

Of that, but she.

B

D

Making doing that pretty much manually.

A

D

You're going to have.

A

People working on that in parallel, that can be a quick process as we go in a parallel track of starting to automate some of those features out of freecad great yeah.

C

Okay, yeah. Let me let me play with that. Little pipeline see see what I can come up with for an easy.

A

Way, yeah and based on your outline, we can say: okay, so here's a task like here's, how we get a perfect case like here's.

D

The elevations here's.

B

C

Script in freaka.

A

That gets us that and plops out a few pictures in the correct.

C

That's the money: is there a good open source like task manager.

A

D

C

D

C

I'm looking back because that I I live and die by.

B

A

Kind of what kind of stuff what kind of packages like we we like you to use some kind. We.

D

A

Scrum board kind of software, where just tasks that are.

D

B

A

There's there's a lot of them out there just pick one.

C

Right, um yeah, I I don't want to whatever you're doing I will I'll fit it use whatever you're doing but um yeah like we use microsoft, planner and it's it's fantastic. I can assign stuff, drag and drop. It's like trello. Basically, microsoft.

B

C

Trello, um but it's oh it's great. um I can't keep track of all my projects, so I am in desperate need of these of who's doing what, where that yeah.

A

Yeah yeah there there is open source alternatives to trello. Let me paste the link uh and then the working dock there, so trello open source alts uh take.

D

A look at that there.

D

D

C

So you know my brother joshua, um my mom was looking for this art thing for my dad and uh joshua got her going to deviant art, um which has a lot of awesome resources, but also somewhere, where I probably wouldn't send my mom a lot of uh scantily clad fairy women on the covers. You know it's an interesting open source resource there. I didn't see that come through um that. Would you paste that I can google it yeah? I know how to find open source alternatives. Don't worry it's fine.

A

Yeah, it's it's in the dock. It's the second page or not. Okay! Go in there. The first page now.

C

Oh there we go got it nice.

A

D

C

Cool okay, um very good: um well, let's stay in touch! Let me know, as things come up um but exciting work.

A

Yeah yeah, thank you so yeah. Thank you for uh talking and collaborating on this. It's great.

B

C

So we got to do now. I I promised my wife, you know like yeah, I'm working with this eco-house people again just like. When are we gonna get a house out of this? I said: give it time we'll get there. Don't worry so.

A

C

A

D

Yeah the the idea is that.

A

uh The turnkey model like if we do all the build for a person they can hire us for 130k. We can do a thousand square foot house model.

E

A

You can for about fifty thousand dollars. You can build it yourself. If you have the time yourself.

C

I gotta get some land yeah.

B

C

Do other things before, but you know eventually.

C

B