17 York Street, NSW, Australia

The project:

The project is a boutique 4-storey residential building in New South Wales.

There is a total of 13 apartments including a rooftop 4-bedroom penthouse, 4 x 1 bedroom apartments and 8 x 2 bedroom apartments.

How long did it take to design the project in h2x? How long would it have taken using traditional methods?

Using h2x, it took me 3 hours to do the hot water, cold water and fire hydrant calculations for pressure, pipe sizing, flow rate and hot water return to the entire building.

Traditionally, it would have taken around 2 days and the results would be less accurate than what h2x provides.

Did h2x increase quality of design and if so, how?

I found that h2x increases the quality of the design at all stages.

Firstly, it is very easy to check different design options and make changes in real-time.

Once I finished designing in h2x, I was able to provide a clear, high-quality model for the drafting team to complete.

What do you like about using h2x in comparison to traditional methods?

It is great for keeping up with architectural design changes. Suppose additional amenities are added, I just need to draw the amenities in h2x, connect to the existing system, and all of the results are recalculated instantly.

QA is much easier as we are able to document changes at each design stage by PDF’ing the calculations.

h2x also shows warnings when the maximum pressure is exceeded, which may be overlooked when using traditional calculation methods.