The Designers 3D CAD Challenge 2001

There does not seem to be enough time to do this project. There are only weeks or days left. Is it possible ?

Absolutely. Take a look at the projects in the gallery of what was done in past years. ALL of them were done in only 3 hours or less (even while an audience was actually watching them, to make sure they did not cheat somehow). At least initially, that was exactly the point of this competition - to herald that there is a better way than merely drafting 2D lines with old-style CADD such as AutoCAD - that there is a whole new category of design software -- specific for architects to do schematic design, called Architectural CADD, which include software such as ArchiCAD, Arris, ArchitecturalDesktop, DesignWorkshop, and many others.

With this years competition, you have much much more time (days, even weeks, instead of hours) and the freedom of working in your own office with no-one looking over your shoulder. Our guess is that most architects could do this project to the level we expect, in about 4 - 6 hours. Which means they could easily do it over the weekend of Nov 10 (though we at least want some sketches by Oct. 31 so we can plan for how many people are going to present on Nov 14.)

Still don't have a clue how to do this so fast, or are still stuck with 2D drafting oriented CADD software ?

It is still possible, even for the CADD-challenged, to download (for free) and learn enough of DesignWorkshop in a single day to do this project well. You could also do it with free, downloadable evaluation versions of DataCAD, ArchiCAD, or several other programs in this category. Contact the Designers Challenge staff for advice.