Wall materials & layers

Build walls from layered material stacks, the catalogue, presets, the layer editor, and the rules.

Every wall is built from an ordered stack of material layers, from its outside face to its inside face. The wall’s thickness is the sum of those layers, and the stack is the foundation for thickness, and future acoustic, thermal and RF behaviour.

The model

• A wall’s thickness = the sum of its layer thicknesses. There is no separate thickness field.
• A wall with no stack data falls back to the default stack: plasterboard 12.5 mm · timber stud 75 mm · plasterboard 12.5 mm = 100 mm.
• Layers are ordered outside → inside, with clear markers in the editor so you always know which face is which.

The material catalogue

The layer catalogue holds 49 material types spanning these categories:

• Masonry
• Cavity
• Insulation
• Structure
• Service zones
• Linings
• Finishes
• Membranes

The layer picker groups types by category. Choosing a type sets the layer’s material; you set its thickness separately.

Presets

Presets let you apply a whole assembly in one tap. There are a dozen, grouped by face:

• Six outside-face envelope assemblies (external wall build-ups).
• Six inside-face partitions (internal wall build-ups).

Applying a preset replaces the entire stack. It’s the fastest way to start, after which you can fine-tune individual layers.

The layer editor

To build a wall’s stack, step into wall editing (select the room, then tap Walls in the Room tool) and tap the wall. On iPad and Mac its material editor docks beside the canvas; on iPhone the wall’s editing handles appear and you open the editor with the Properties button (so it never covers the canvas while you reposition the wall). The editor shows:

1. A Preset launcher (apply a whole assembly).
2. The total thickness (updates live as you edit).
3. An Outside marker.
4. The layer list, each row shows the layer’s name and thickness, with up/down nudge, delete, and drag-to-reorder.
5. An Inside marker.
6. An Add layer button (appends at the chosen face).

Tap a layer row to edit its type and thickness on a detail screen.

Two more controls live in the same editor: a Free wall (partition) toggle that excludes the wall from its room’s outline (see Rooms & walls), and - when the wall carries wall-mounted lights or radiators - a one-tap flip to the other side row that moves them all across the wall at once.

The rules

Editing the stack updates the wall’s drawn thickness immediately, and on connected walls the stack is mirrored to the other side, so a shared wall stays consistent in both rooms (see Multi-room & floors). Wall-mounted lights and radiators shift to stay flush with the new inner face automatically.

What layers are used for

• The rendered wall thickness; accurate openings, measurements and the 3-D model; and whether a wall reads as internal or external.
• Material-aware WiFi attenuation - the WiFi engine reads each wall’s layer stack to work out how much signal that wall absorbs.

Next

• Doors, windows & openings
• Lights & heating