Braces near doors and windows

[jwdvorak]

I'm designing 2 attached TF houses with boat garage (double T-shape).  The house part, one gable end T's into the garage; it's 24' long (3 bents) x 48' wide (gable end).  The front of the house is a non-gable side, with a view; I placed the front door & picture windows there.  I'm using house design software which doesn't provide support for TF framing, and "fake" drawing the posts & beams after placing walls, doors and windows (unfortunately, no way to draw the braces).  I discovered I'd made a really dumb rookie mistake; I'd originally placed the front door in the middle of the wall.  Of course, a post goes there... so I moved the door a couple feet over, now the door is right next to the post.  In fact, all 3 exterior doors in the house ended up directly adjacent to a post.  Hah!  Now I've realized the braces will interfere with the doors (not to mention all the picture windows in the front wall).  

So, my question: can I eliminate braces in the middle bent near the doors (or use really short braces), or would that compromise structural integrity too much?  I experimented with adding another bent, it solved the problem near the front (& rear) door, but compounded the problem near all the front picture windows.  I'm really struggling with how the braces will affect the front window wall.  One  thought occurred to me... custom-shaped window sections near the braces; tops "cut off" @ 45-degree angles, with a triangle-shaped window section "inside" the corner at each brace.  What's the typical way to handle a picture window wall in a TF structure?

BTW, the house is a 2-story structure, the front section (Living Room) is Open Below (cathedral).  If I did eliminate braces in the middle bent, it would only be on the 1st floor; the 2nd floor would still have braces in that bent, and of course the corners would, too.

Thanks for any advice,
Woody

[Don P]

In a conventional house the sheathing, well attached to the frame, provides the bracing. The same applies here and that is generally the actual bracing in a TF.

[flyingparks]

Yes, you can but as Don P says, you will need to use sheathing and fast.

[logman]

If you use sips wouldn't that solve the problem?  

[Don P]

Yes, it has 2 sheathing layers bonded to the insulation. Connection to the frame as bracing would be according to their or the engineer of record's specs. The beauty there is that they can span further between framing members because of that bonded thickness.

[jwdvorak]

Thank you for the replies.  I'm tinkering with the frame design, particularly in the open front area; I'm wondering if I might be able to remove the 1st floor tie beams from the front wall altogether?  The middle bent's post would go to the 2nd floor, with tie beams there; the rest of the house would still have 1st-floor tie beams between all 3 bents.  Is it necessary to have 1st floor tie beams (wall girts) on that front outer wall, between the bents?  It seems counterintuitive to remove them, but is it possible?

I'll draw it it up in SU, and try to envision the build sequence, to figure if it could be built without tie beams there.  I'll post some screenshots and ask for more advice later.

Thanks,
~W