Virtual office spans oceans and time

Onuma & Associates - Tokyo/Los Angeles

Onuma tested the abilities of ArchiCAD on a large-scale institutional project that involved creating a model that literally spanned miles and contained offices, warehouse space, 2,000 houses and more than 4,000 trees. ArchiCAD handled it with ease.

"The use of ArchiCAD libraries allows us to build something real... You get objects with meaning, not just lines."

"ArchiCAD is very powerful in its ability to manage anything tied to a project, including cost estimates, architectural elements, and the buildings themselves," said Kimon Onuma of Onuma & Associates.

Surpassing expectation

"We were able to catalogue the contents and generate different perspectives, and in the end we gave much more to the client than they expected. They had expected us to use AutoCAD® to generate simple 2D files."

Using ArchiCAD's graphic description language (GDL) Onuma can standardize large-scale housing projects by creating custom library parts that can be shared by team members.
"The use of ArchiCAD libraries allows us to build something real," Onuma explained. "You get objects with meaning, not just lines."

A 30-year-old multinational company, Onuma & Associates is located on both sides of the Pacific in Tokyo and Los Angeles. "Our two offices are located 6,000 miles apart, and our clients are spread far apart as well," Onuma said. ?We need to work in both metric and feet and inches, as well as different languages, so our software needs to do this as well. That is one reason we chose ArchiCAD."

Understanding 3D

Onuma expanded their services by creating Webscape (www.webscape.com) to build 'architecture for the virtual world', that exploits ArchiCAD's 3D and object based information management capabilities.
"As architects, we understand the third dimension and how humans interact with it," Onuma said. Based in Los Angeles, Webscape builds, among other things, digital cities, 3D worlds for the internet, QTVR, interactive media and high-end websites. "Through the use of this 3D software, I saw the potential for architecture to move into the 3D realm. ArchiCAD played a big role in helping us create Webscape."

Various developers in Japan and the US-commissioned Onuma and Webscape to create hundreds of single - and multi-family - "virtual" model homes. Some of these projects were used to pre-sell the units. Webscape used ArchiCAD and Artlantis Render to create renderings, QuickTime VR's, and a fly-through that places the model houses in a neighborhood environment. "The fly-through begins with a virtual map of Japan, and connects all the way down to the individual units," Kimon explained.

To handle such large-scale 'virtual' projects, Onuma & Associates created a virtual workplace that is not limited by geography, physical office space or the clock. A website is created for every project, where team members can download the ArchiCAD template and receive updates, and clients can also view the progress of the design at any time of the day.

"We work with team members based in California and Japan, or wherever they may be connected to the Internet. I communicate the design to them and create templates in ArchiCAD based on specifications," Onuma explained. "ArchiCAD's teamwork functionality is crucial in creating this virtual work environment. Time zone differences allows us to keep a project rolling on a 24-hour schedule."