Wirral MBC use CADlogic's LT Architect extension

Wirral MBC Property Services find that CADlogic's LT Architect extension to AutoCAD LT is the best tool for the job.

Wirral is a chiefly residential peninsula, with seaside resorts, lying between the estuaries of the Dee and Mersey rivers, and, as a metropolitan borough formed in 1974, it has a population of a third of a million having a wide range of needs for building, refurbishing and extending housing estates, schools, libraries, and other council facilities and area offices.

These needs are catered for by the Property Services Department of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, based at Wallasey, and the building design software they run is the popular CAD system AutoCAD LT with CADlogic's high-productivity architectural extension LT Architect.

The new system was purchased by the Department from the leading Autodesk design and data management system centre, Cadassist, based in Bramhall, Cheshire.

LT Architect was selected after considering a number of architecturally-focused CAD packages, and it was found to offer the best value and return-on-investment.

There are now over a thousand active seats of LT Architect throughout the UK, but one of the very first beta tests of the product was performed by the Wirral MBC back in 1997.

Much of their practical feedback from this trial was introduced into the product.

They now run ten seats themselves, composed of six for architectural design, two for asset management, and two for the building surveyors.

Asset management, for instance, is a new Government requirement to show floor plans in a standard format of every building which a council owns, inclusive of condition surveys and utilisation levels, so that, for example, schools can be adapted to the right size for the number of pupils.

The productivity gains in the Council's architectural design and draughting through using AutoCAD LT with LT Architect have been beneficial: typical floor plans of a large building previously taking 3-4 days to draw up can now be completed in 1-2 days after only half-an-hour's individual familiarisation with the software.

Features of LT Architect found by Wirral MBC to be of particular benefit have been: the parametrics for drawing walls, doors, windows, stairs and roofs; building sections; parametric structural steel details for construction and fabrication; and libraries of hundreds of architectural symbols, many dimensionable through parametrics.

One example has been the management of a recent £2.7m project for refurbishing a 1960's housing estate, comprising both estate remodelling and home improvements to houses and flats in Greystoke Close and Molyneux Close, Upton, Wirral, in partnership with the UK-wide building contractors Bramall Construction Ltd.

In this case, the local issues to be addressed have included: security, vandalism, domestic privacy, heat insulation, rewiring for electrical safety, as well as other problems associated with the predominantly elderly residents.

To improve security and privacy, footpaths have been reduced and open spaces enclosed.

Off-street parking has been created where possible.

Disabled access has been improved around flats.

Meanwhile new UPVC, double-glazed windows and doors include security fittings to the current crime prevention recommendations.

Using its parametric power to repeat and modify, LT Architect has provided a fast and efficient method of incorporating all these, primarily functional and expedient, features into the Wirral MBC's architectural designs within the required budget.

LT Architect has then facilitated their rapid modification in response to the flow of comments and suggestions from tenants' representatives, surveyors, mechanical and electrical engineers, building contractors and suppliers.

Once the budget has been approved, Wirral MBC are now looking forward to using the latest Version 3 of LT Architect, incorporating style saving, editable intelligent blocks, user-definable layering, a host of new architectural symbols, and a virtual reality, 3D walkthrough ideal for client presentations.

Back to top