Endless Path of Improvement

Zumbro Zen

I’m particularly proud of this project. It’s the Star Tribune’s Home of the Month for September 2011 and is going to be on the Homes By Architects Tour in Minnesota on September 17th and 18th, 2011. I did the drawings back in late 2008 on ArchiCAD 11. You probably won’t see my name in the articles. I wasn’t the lead designer. But I https://shoegnome.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1d-2d-3d-intersection.webpd the project. I often join projects

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Take 14:36 to let Eric Bobrow teach you about Guide Lines in ArchiCAD 15

When I introduce my coworkers to ArchiCAD 15, I show them three new things and then say “get to work, we’ll cover the rest as it comes up”. I know that’s not the best way to learn a new version, but everyone using ArchiCAD 15 at SALA Architects happens to be on projects with tight deadlines. So they get the short, short version of my upgrade speech. Half of the

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I’m Looking for Guest Bloggers

In the next few months I’m planning to revamp the blog and website. I’ve spent the last year focusing on writing and getting the word out. Now it’s time, among other things, to update the about page and the ArchiCAD page to better reflect who I am and what the blog has evolved into, add links to my favorite ArchiCAD sites, etc. As the first step in that process I’d

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Groups Part 2

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on groups in ArchiCAD. It has quickly  become one of my most popular. If you haven’t read that post, you might want to start here. Well I’ve been thinking more about groups since then. And Link Ellis (one of my ArchiCAD heroes) offered some great additions to the list in this LinkedIn post. Below is a summary of Link’s thoughts (4.

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I upgrade, you upgrade, we all upgrade

Or at least you better. No one should be running ArchiCAD 6.5 on Windows 2000. It just doesn’t make sense. And  it is a huge loss of value and wasted effort. No one should have to deal with plotmaker ever again. Ever. There is just no acceptable argument as to why someone would still want to use it. A few weeks ago, my brother Mike sent me a link to

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How much do you know about Groups?

Let’s start with the basics and get a bit more complex. 1. The enable/suspend groups button should always be visible. If the button looks like the image below, then groups are enabled. Otherwise they are suspended. 2. It’s a good idea to have shortcuts for enable/suspend groups, group, and ungroup. This is what I use: command+G: group option+G: enable/suspend groups command+option+G: ungroup 3. When groups are enabled, you move the

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Virtual Visible Views Project

In the ArchiCAD LinkedIn group, Michael Scarmack, AIA, recently started gauging interest in a global experiment using the ArchiCAD BIMserver that he’d like to conduct. There’s a lot of excitement about this grassroots project and I think it will lead to some big things. What things? I don’t know. But it is entrepreneurial experimentation and group collaboration like this that will bring our industry into the future and prevent our

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Your 7 Day Window to Register for the Best Practices Course Just Started

If you use ArchiCAD and have the internet, you probably know about Eric Bobrow’s Best Practices Course. I talked a bit about it in this earlier blog post. Since that post, I’ve heard a lot of good things about the course and Eric has also posted more free videos. Registration has opened up and will stay open until the 9th of March. Looks like a great course and a very

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Backup! Seriously. Backup.

How often do you back up your files? Daily? You better. Anything longer is a wrong answer. Here’s Part One of why: My brother is in IT; when I was younger he excitedly told me about a new server he’d installed. It had 7 drives in parallel. You could rip one out of the server while it was on and no data was lost. It needed to be set up

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