ArchiCAD Winter School: Report on ACWS 15-22 January 2005

See the Report from 2004 ACUEWinterSchool_2004
See the Report from 2003 ACUEWinterSchool_2003

The Winter School was very different in 2005 from previous years. There was an enhanced thinking and design content, with ArchiCAD being a useful production tool that makes it fun to produce. We ran a ‘charrette’, an intensive analysis and design programme, phased over 5 nights, with some ArchiCAD tutorials to kick off each evening’s work. The subject of the charrette was to design a new building on Feuerkogel to replace the Berghotel, but first, we asked people to consider the whole analysis of the problems and possibilities of Feuerkogel – economic, social, sporting etc.

Sunday 16th Jan

Glorious Skiing weather - sunshine all day and enough snow to provide excellent skiing. Everybody was out on their skis or boards, and the beginners were taken care of by the excellent local Ski school.

In the evening, Adrian Harms did a run through of the significant changes in ArchiCAD 9 (many of the delegates had not used it) and moved on to two special areas that would be of help to the group project – Teamwork and Hotlinked Modules.

Later, David NC presented a Powerpoint outlining the brief for the charrette, his analysis of the problems of Feuerkogel, with the invitation to groups to take it a lot further as a ‘swot’ analysis, and to emerge with a consensus of the buildings and changes that could be applied to Feuerkogel to regenerate the economy and facilities and resolve the problem of the dead Berghotel.

Monday 17th Jan

Glorious Skiing weather again.
Late in the afternoon, the Mayor of Ebensee, Daniel Loibl, came up the mountain and spent a good time with a dozen delegates listening to us and answering questions, with translations from Andreas and Peter.

Evening: we were offered Night Skiing and the Igloo on the baby slope had been converted to a cheery pub, while the children enjoyed climbing over the roof of the igloo. It was such fun that it was hard to get back to work.

Charrette: team leaders presented a general outline of what the groups had discussed, and what they had decided (if anything) in words, using a flipchart.

Tuesday 18th Jan

Perfect Skiing weather in the morning although the pistes were becoming icy. We ate our lunches on the terrace, but the wind was picking up and the mackerel skies indicated cloud and snow to come. They did and the snow fell lightly all night.

Evening: Gerald Faustenhammer of ANull, Vienna, showed how ArchiPhysik, the building physics add-on is developing. ArchiPhysik calculated UValues and heatloss for zones in an ArchiCAD model. This is now fully available in English with a free tryout version that lasts for a month.

The strong Graphisoft team of Akos Pfemeter, Viktor Varkonyi and Lazslo Vertesi provided candid answers to a long question and answer session, focusing on tangible improvements that they could apply to ArchiCAD and taking plenty of notes to share with the developer team in Budapest. Orsi Balazs from Graphisoft was also present.

Charrette: Groups worked late into the night on their ideas and proposals.

Wednesday 19th January

Skiing: Windy in the morning, and worsening visibility at high altitude, but excellent snow quality from the new fall.
The lower chairlift run was of outstanding quality for those who went down. Little did we know, this was our last skiing of the week.

Evening: Visualisation: Daniel Dusoswa demonstrated some remarkable software called UZR iModeller 3D, 3D photo scanning of physical objects into texture mapped polygons using a series of digital photographs. The result can be exported to a variety of 3D formats and used on the web. (see www.uzr3d.com/en/news/)

Lubomir Kulichev provided a talk on three visualisation techniques, the use of the cameras to generate a Flythrough, the VR Object, and the VR Walkabout. This also extended to demonstrating the smarter uses of the Marquee tool, the 3D Cutaway. In response to a question about even more complex cutaway modes, LK demonstrated the effect of Solid Geometry commands, operating on the entire building to produce a complex carved-out style of cutaway.

Charrette: After a beer, group leaders each presented a Powerpoint outlining their analysis and an outline of their proposal, without a specific built solution. The work on the charrettes then continued late into the night.

Peter Martin and David NC Left: Liu Liu Zhang, Laura Freer and Jo Deeming

Thursday 20th January

Skiing: Hurricane winds all day, over 130kmh forced everybody to stay in. The few who went out for a ski came back in very quickly – not just the oppressive conditions, but the bits of roof and wood and icicles flying through the air. After lunch, all lifts stayed silent.

Afternoon: Three wine tastings by our host Alex Neubacher, in English and German who is a qualified wine lecturer ith a wonderful cellar and specialises in Austrian wines. The wine tasting was sponsored by the Mayor of Ebensee. Alcoholis levels permitting, the afternoon was a good opportunity for us to catch up with the building designs and to get into ArchiCAD – a hidden blessing from the bad weather.

Evening: Bence Kovacs from Graphisoft provided us with an excellent question and answer session, starting with the key question: In the land of the Virtual Building, what more do you want us to do to make ArchiCAD the undisputed equivalent of Photoshop in photoediting, or Flash in vector based web animation. There was a lively and constructive discussion from the delegates. Bence went on to demonstrate Zermatt, a new product that is a new must-have add-on to ArchiCAD - that allows navigation through the 3D model.

Charrette: The group work on the charrette then continued late into the night.

Charrette: At 3.30, the Ebensee team turned up despite the extreme weather, including:

• Erwin Zepperzauer, Deputy Mayor of Ebensee,
• Gerd Beczwar, manager of the Cablecar,
• Christian Feichtinger, Chamber of Commerce,
• Thomas Lacherbauer, Chamber of Commerce,
• Claus Wallinger, Official for Cultural Affairs,
• Tom Andreas, Planning Architect,
• Wolfgang Neuhuber, Ski School, Feuerkogel.

The groups presented their powerpoints:

Black Group: presented a detailed SWOT analysis (in german) with humorous and smart illustrations, ending with the visionary idea of a Centre for the Seasons, catering as an educational, relaxation and sporting centre for spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Group Members: Clemens Buhring, Paul Jozsa, Laura Freer, Orsi Balazs.

G-Force group: the all german language group, presented a very detailed analysis of the problems and new directions for Feuerkogel, ending with a detailed look at the Hotel project (started in 2004) adapted to a new brief for a conference centre. This had a very impressive skyline and included the cablecar and showed the building in its summer condition - with umbrellas and sunloungers on the west facing sundeck – but the conditions outside made us realise that a building so oriented to summer use with so much glass would be vulnerable in the more extreme winter climate.
Group Members: George Weber, Charlotte Darre, Andreas Lettner, Kurt Stengg, Reinhard Brandstetter, Martina Polzlbauer, Schorsch Dunst, with help from Andi Muttenthaler, Adrian Harms and Herbert Peter.

The Green Group: presented a detailed SWOT analysis, followed by detailed ideas for a University study and research centre in Feuerkogel on the site of the Berghotel – a Berg Campus, reusing the hotels already here for residential use. There would be a high emphasis on sustainability going from zero emission targets in 5 years to total autonomy after a longer period. The project had detailed ideas on funding and constructional materials – constructing a building on the Berghotel site in much its present shape, and providing a protected walkway linking the hotels and chalets on the site. This one was picked up by the press and reported on Nachrichten (Austrian broadcasting service) later in the week - see below. See Team Green's presentation...
Group Members: John Littlewood, Harley Vincent, Chris Sinkinson, Marie Sofie Larsen, Alex Tepper, Jo Deeming, Liu Liu Zhang, Rajiv Patel.

Halo group: presented a good analysis too (mostly bilingual), concluding with a detailed design for an education centre on the site of the Berghotel in the form of a large wing (matching one that would be in the town below). The scheme included detailed interiors and detailed proposals for wind protection to spaces around the cablecar station.
Group Members: Richard Hudson, Steve Major, Helen Morse, Claire Mold, Paul Welch, Nikolaj Knudsen, David Kjoller, Henry Godfrey.

Team Gruppe: presented their idea of the “Island on the Mountains” with nice ideas and hand drawn images and a bilingual presentation.
Group Members: Til Breton, Richard Payne, Jan Ludwig Hundvebakke, Heidi Hardis, Tim Sparks, Jacob Lanng, Mei Lin Khor.

Following the presentations, the deputy mayor and the cablecar manager proposed their thanks for all the hard work by the groups during the week – congratulating them on their observant analysis of the situation in Feuerkogel. This work will help with a working party for the future of the resort, who will report in May 2005. What it has shown is that the simple idea of replacing the Berghotel with just another hotel is not the right answer. The previous owner of the Edelweiss hotel, the father of Alex Neubacher, closed the proceedings with his thanks to all for their successful work.

We were all so happy at the outcome that the rest of the evening was a party – ideas of another plenary session on ArchiCAD were quietly forgotten.
CDs of the presentations are available to team participants on special request.

Twelve go looking for fun in Salzburg

Next year: The format of the Winter School will return to the combination of plenaries and workshops, with channels for GDL and other specialities, and if there is a design project, it will be using a more exactly defined brief and with a sketch design prepared, so that delegates can get down to using ArchiCAD straight away. The Week of 22-29 January 2006 is booked.

Join the ArchiCAD University Group: there is now a Yahoo Group for ArchiCAD University (CMS based website) for members to discuss continuing education with ArchiCAD through ACUE events. The Group Home page is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archicad-university and you can apply to join and an approval request will be sent to DNC's email. Approval is instant for all past attenders to ACUe events, summer or winter or west.

Nachrichten Report on the Winter School Deutsch English Translation below, with corrections Ecology University at the Feuerkogel? EBENSEE 2005. 60 architects and student from all over the world delivered in the past week spectacular ideas for the future of Feuerkogel, which could secure its future as a tourist location. A University campus on the Feuerkogel, in which lecturers and students work with ecology and environmental technologies? For the 60 users of an international architecture Winter School, which took place in mid January on that 1600 meters high mountain, this concept is not utopian. The participants are confident that the potential would extend beyond the boundaries of Austria. And the Campus should be a living example of sustainable technology integrated with the landscape, using recycling, passive design, and harnessing wind and solar energies. For a whole week young architects and students drawn from all over the world worked in groups at the Feuerkogel, in order to operate on ideas and suggestions for the mountain. At the end they presented concepts for the use of the mountain and architectural suggestions. "For us these proposals are priceless know-how, which we recognise will surely flow into our future considerations", vowed Gerd Becwar, director of the aerial Cablecar operator company and the tourism trust for the Traunsee lake. The guests promised to come in the next year again on the Feuerkogel. "We find here everything that we need", explained Peter Martin of the University of Leeds, "from the high-altitude wine cellar to the Internet Broadband."

Members of the Austrian delegation (foreground) concentrate on the presentation

Last update: December 30, 2006