QUESTION:

I've got a balcony that is roughly designed for blocking the sun up until March 21 in Sydney. For some reason I can't get it to show this on my ECOTECT model. The balcony just doesn't seem to block the sun at any time of the year.

Is there something wrong with my model...?

ANSWER:

It sounds like, because you are designing a balcony to shade with, you might have the object specified as a Floor Element. This as a result will not display the shadows you are after.

This at first glance might appear silly to have Floor objects not cast shadows, however it has been necessary to make Floors "special" in this regard, as ultimately the majority of shadows (and Floors) exist on the ground.

As such if ECOTECT did cast shadows from floor objects, you would never see the shadows/sun penetration from other objects which are of interest, as the floor shadow would always override everything else.

So, in short you need to make shading devices any element type, except of type Floor.