Special Seminars on Architectural CADD Software
RAIC 2000
Futuristic Computer Design Tools
Presentation Notes
CADD systems need to do the same basic things, and that is :
1) to easily design in different ways, as all projects are different and have different starting points. We need to do Plansmithing, sketch, 3D block massing models, drawing elevations or whatever is needed to achieve our design innovations.
2) they will let us put in Spaces, Walls, windows/doors, stairs, roofs, ramps, elevators
3) add furniture - whether custom designed or manufacturers products
4) allow all these things to be stretched, copied, and moved
5) and visualiz all this in a wide variety of ways - for ourselves, our clients, or the builders
So you KNOW that is how it will be 2000 years from now.
At the pace things are going, you can be pretty sure that is how it will be just 200 years from now. At that point, though, assuming building departments or some kind of construction inspection organization still exists, you can be pretty sure they would require that any proposed design be submitted not just in a 3D CADD model, but an architecturally intelligent one.
It is my guess that just 20 years from now most of what I have mentioned will already exist, and will be common practice for most architects. In fact, it would be a very unusual client and circumstance that didn't require 3D CADD.
Right now some amazing things are happening very very quickly, so that even 2 years from now there is some technology that will make your head spin. Ed Wolfstein, a little later, is going to show you some more of what you can get right now, and for anyone who is just drafting away using 2D CADD, they will be shocked at what some of their colleagues are already using.
I will tell you what I DO NOT see happening in the future -and that is that
I do not see AutoCAD or any other specific CADD software becomming a single standard software.
Something like that would be counter to human nature, and counter to a basic understanding of capitalism.
That would be like saying we all would end up using the exact same telephone. Not only are we all different, with different needs for our telephones, but, in fact, we do not even use the same telephone network - as you can see with people using standard wired phones, digital PCS phones, people using internet phones, satelite phones, radio phones, and so on. The only important issue is that they all can interconnect.
Similarly, I see even more and more specialized CADD and design software emerging, for all kinds of phases of design, specific project types, specialized materials, and job specializations.
New Ways of obtaining software and paying for software
downloading free versions, and light versions
Revit Subscriptions, PPU
New ways of getting tutorials
downloadable from web sites and available on CDs, all of which allow for a more customized personalized learning enviroment, instead of waiting for a class to be formed, and trying to remember even 20% of what you learn in a classroom. You need to design a custom doorway for a client, click on a tutorial on how to design a custom door. Design firms are going to have to learn to tollerate people learning all the time on the job.
Office Networks
Extranets
If nothing else forces a design firm into using CADD software, it is the builders and building owners who are beginning to realize that extranets are the most important tool to getting projects done on time and on budget and to smooth communications. They coordinate ALL the projects documentation, correspondance, drawings, change orders, everything all in one place. Since extranets even make sense on projects as small as a private single family house, it very well may be that EVERY architect will be required to use extranets and submit drawings to them all within the next two years.
Many builders are still relatively unsophisticated with respect to computers, but as they work with others and realize how important extranets are to profitiability, they will quickly move into this technology. Just as it was when average people started realizing that PCs were actually just a terrific COMMINICATIONS device, because of the WWW, as opposed to a technical COMPUTING device, when people's attitudes change, certain technologies get absorbed extrodinarily quickly.
Executives used to not want a phone on their desk.
Analogy
WordProcessing on an IBM-PC was fine for getting out letters and even books
What pushed needing a much more powerful machine was the WWW and emphasis on business communication
Attached documents and even drawings to email messages
More and more businesses expect that you do this
Architects and Engineers who are drafting line by line in 2D CADD are at a similar "model T" stage to where wordprocessing was in 1985
In the old days of CADD it simply did not matter how, or even wether, you were connected to others - all you needed was a system to draft lines and plot out onto paper - that is how the project got done.
The most common thing heard during that 2D CADD paradime, was "we don't need 3D modeling, our clients don't pay us to PLAY in 3D and do perspectives." We simply don't have time to PLAY.
More and more clients, contractors, builders, are going to EXPECT that the architect uses an extranet and be able to transfer intelligent USABLE drawings to the others on the project team.
To be used for Structural Analysis, Cost Analysis, Building Code Checking, Interior Design, Facilities Management
Recommendations :
If have existing CADD :
All these upgrades are definitely worth it.
Principals, Project Managers
Designers
Production Details
For those who still don't have anything, but are in Architecture
Guarenteed, virtually all of them are working on some new angle relative to the world wide web.
This could be the summer when certain abilities start to become commonplace practice in AEC, such as
1) drag a drop symbols direct from manufacturers web sites into CADD,
2) extranet interlinks with CADD,
3) running CADD software from the web, and
4) presentation viewer meeting tools that work with many formats across the web.
Stuff to Show
Other software to present if time