Question about Blocks

[Crystal]

Please excuse me if this may be a stupid question. I'm just starting my career as an interior designer and I am proficient in CAD, but today when I opened a floor plan from the architect I was slightly confused and hoping I can get clarification as to why, from the community here. Why is it that when I opened this floor plan ALL layers were made into one block? We need the plan for space planning and furniture layouts and to get down to the bare bones basically of the structure I have to turn off all un-needed layers and I found it odd that all of the layers were a block. I exploded the block to make it easier to see what layers to turn off, but no one at the office new why the architect would make it one big block.

Thanks.

[lpseifert]

I'm guessing the architect had an xref originally and used Bind prior to sending it to you. Apparently he didn't explode the block that binding an xref creates.

[edwinprakoso]

I know someone who did this in the past.
He use blocks because they need the plan in several drawings. So when they needs modification, then he only need to modify one block, and update the other block definitions. Or probably they needs to isolate the objects in the floor plan when editing.
This is not a good practice actually, they should use XREF instead of blocks.

They created the objects on different layers, but when they insert it, of course it will use the same layer for the block. You might want to use Layer Walk to check the layers to turn off.

[edwinprakoso]

I'm guessing the architect had an xref originally and used Bind prior to sending it to you. Apparently he didn't explode the block that binding an xref creates.

It could be the reason why it becomes a block too... Probably use e-transmit is better than this method