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The Cambridge Seven mission statement declares a commitment to projects that are of value to society, allow fresh and innovative thinking, focus on architecture as place, and afford a mutually supportive and collaborative process. Today, collaborative process at the firm is largely articulated through the ADT software.

Evolving CAD Capabilities

Gilman explains the firm selected ADT in 1998 after evaluating several CAD products. They felt that built-in features such as smart walls, doors, stairs, drafting symbols, and integrated modeling would help them keep current with the building industry and help facilitate the expression of ideas.

Now in its third release, ADT is a model-based design system that permits building designers to develop construction documentation as a set of views of a single, consistent building model. It also allows them to generate plans, sections, elevations, and schedules from this model.

ADT 3 helps C7A architects focus on essential design activities while reducing the workflow inefficiencies and drafting inaccuracies that typically occur during the reiterative process of design development. The software facilitates the production of more accurate construction documents, potentially streamlining design and construction processes.

Gilman at C7A reflects that when the firm originally started using CAD, they were technologically ahead of many of their clients and consultants. In the ensuing years, as their clients and consultants learned to work with the firm's technologies, the level of collaborative computing efforts was raised.

The firm continues to meet client requirements with a variety of products, but increasingly, solutions are found with ADT.

Benefits of the Single Building Model

ADT's architectural objects — such as stairs, curtain walls, and roofs — behave according to the logic of their real-world properties, updating automatically whenever a design change is made.

These objects can be placed either in 2D or 3D to create the building model, which becomes the single data set from which project documents are generated. All information throughout the building model is dynamically linked, so the data is created only once, cutting cycle time and reducing the potential for costly errors.

Using ADT 3, an extended design team can place mechanical and electrical systems into the model, enabling data to be extracted for a greater variety of uses. ADT also supports "clash detection" of building systems objects, providing additional feedback from the model.

With improved Internet collaboration features like Publish to Web, i-drop technology, and DWF files, the ADT 3 user can post drawings to the Web, connect to design resources, drag architectural content directly into drawings, and conduct online meetings. Autodesk Architectural Desktop is built on top of AutoCAD 2002, providing compatibility with the widely used DWG file format.

ADT 3 in Practice

One of the most important considerations in C7A's selection of ADT was the comprehensiveness of the package. ADT offers the firm 2D drafting tools, symbol libraries, 3D modeling, and compatibility with the systems used by most of their consultants and clients.

In the latest release, new architectural objects and enhancements to the existing object library, including curtain walls, roof slabs, and window assemblies, enable architects to use ADT effectively on a greater variety of building types.

This includes large-scale institutional and commercial facilities such as C7A's new $65 million Kuwait National Petroleum Company headquarters, the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Massachusetts, and the new ambulatory service building at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

With the improved modeling tools, C7A has been able to study the shape and volumes of buildings earlier in design and with a smaller team. Designers on the Kuwait project commented on the increased speed with which they input their design ideas.

They looked at more 3D views of this project, both exterior and interior, than any project done before by C7A, and they were particularly pleased by the quick renderings that showed some intriguing results from the shadows cast by skylights and sunscreens in that latitude.

Gilman describes how the 3D modeling done to study sun angles allowed the architects to refine the design of the south elevation. She recalls: "We wanted to avoid using shading mechanisms, like louvers or screens, that would project from the wall surface."

Instead, she explains: "In the 3D model, our designers were able to sculpt the openings in the masonry wall and refine the thickness of the wall to provide, or obscure, an acceptable amount of direct sunlight to the interior. After defining the wall thickness, they could then proceed to design the wall assembly and the details that provide that thickness, while still working out the locations of those openings."

Gilman says they can integrate photographs, scans, schedules, models, color, and animation with one tool from one source. She is also pleased that the plotting functions have been streamlined, and they are now easier to manage across a network.

Elizabeth Bollinger is a professor at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, University of Houston, in Houston, Texas.

North and south elevations of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company headquarters. Image: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. East elevation. Image: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. ADT rendering of the effect of daylighting with louvered windows. Image: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. Effect of daylighting without louvers. Image: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. 3D view of the atrium used in daylight studies of the office building. Image: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. An ambulatory care center at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Image: Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. ADT rendering of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company headquarters. Image: Neoscape, Inc. Atrium of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company headquarters. Image: Neoscape, Inc.   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.