(Warning: Friday Afternoon Musing)
It concerns me to have my name coming up relative to the REVIT/Archicad debate. I can't offer any help to compare the applications because I've never seen REVIT. In fact, I cover my eyes when they push their displays up to my bedroom window. Sort of like being Catholic and never going into another denomination's temple. I think that was because it was a sin or something. You could end up in ArchiPURGATORY until you kissed the ArchiPOPE's ring. Or the recitation of three GDL Object scripts while doing a good deed.
My observations in this matter apply in three areas:
1: Marketing:
See the message copied at:
http://forum.sketchup.com/showthread.php?p=519241#post519241
This refers to a marketing experience that convinced me that the immense marketing power behind REVIT will eventually prevail. It can reach the places other beers can't - like the back cover of Cadalyst magazine where two guys kick a cabbage. Altho, recently I am seeing a more critical evaluation of competing applications, so I have renewed hope that users are getting smarter.
2: Paradigm Shift and Design Culture:
The choice of Archicad/REVIT is somewhat irrelevant - while either application might present a killer pitfall for your practice style, buildings pop out of both of them. So don't sweat it. Ford Versus Chrysler, etc. At one time, Archicad represented an intimidating paradigm shift. It WAS different! You could feel smart if you "got" the BIM idea in 1992, like I did, and create a lot of integrated material quickly. Even ten years ago, it was ahead of the curve. So far ahead, even, that it was around the bend. You couldn't see it from the back of the bus, where most computer drafting was taking place. But not now. The BIM is an established concept. Now we need to talk about how we want to buildinginformationmodel (to use the German) a building - what's important, what's not. When you buy either application, you'll be furthering the paradigm shift because the culture is still being discovered.
For instance, if this was automotive technology, it would still be the 1920's. Guys with plenty of spare tires in the white suits with goggles. Handy with tools. We are like the Joad boys, grinding our valves when not eating fried dough.
Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" addresses the idea of "paradigm shift". How things change. How people cling to the old ways. Things don't change so much as old guys die.
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html
We've seen paradigm shift in our profession as the graphite (remember those lousy waxy drafting pencils? What shyte!!) and drafting film guys retire and the goateed keyboard punks take over. But this change also attacks the billing pyramid paradigm. How do you exploit (and develop) junor staff when menial tasks evaporate. Now, some punk can mess up an entire city plan with an accidental pinky trackpad drag and a Command-S instead of a Command -Z (Why DO they have to be so close together?).
Both applications mean a paradigm shift in architectural design thinking. No more smoke-filled ateliers where soft cheese-eating beret-wearing men argue over esoteric things like "La facade… chalis!" Now we have smoke-filled projection rooms with cheesy fly-throughs and argue over esoteric things like pixel-smeared texture maps.
3: The Third Thing: When Autodesk buys Graphisoft and gives them top billing in the combined product, ArchiRIBBET will eventually be overcome by the third thing. Here's what's going to happen: Both applications are heavily invested code - they are being developed along their cultural lines and incorporating new features as they go. Clunky. The clean up never happens. Like the floor of the Ark after two weeks. Look at that mess down there! Like Leo Kottke on his live "My Feet Are Smiling" album where he says "I'm going to take a lovely melody and drive it right into the ground."
You can just see the opposing cultures developing and coalescing. Will REVIT always have over-bureaucratic relationships and scalability problems (etc)? Will Archicad always have lousy library management and lousy rendering (etc)? Perhaps, until radiosity and real-time rendering preview, but we will know that the paradigm is fully shifted when a new product arrives - like SketchUp did over five years ago. A complete leapfrog possessing beauty and clarity.
That is what you want to get ready for. Until then, regardless of the money and time spent in deciding between ArchiCAD and RIBBIT, the training costs, etc. we are all still in BIM school.
Pontificatorially yours:
Dwight Atkinson
