Design Process Question

[prigowasu]

Our office is evaluating our design and documentation process. We are a residential architecture firm specializing in high end homes and providing full interior design services (including FF&E). We appreciate using Archicad to document projects. However, our design staff is having difficultly using the software to efficiently design and iterate within the SD and DD phases of work. We often fall back on Sketchup for quickly designing our initial massing models on the architecture side and interior casework on the interiors side. Are we making a mistake continuing to use Sketchup for early design work? It ultimately comes down to the ease, fluidity and looseness that designing in Sketchup has over Archicad. Has anyone else ran into this conundrum? I’d appreciate hearing what some other Archicad offices are doing in terms of design process.

[mthd]

A solo practitioner usually has very limited funds and may not have invested in multiple CAD options. A big firm can employ many design professionals in specialized areas and may have multiple CAD solutions. Imagine if you were the person doing the NURBS concept in Rhino, or what about the person doing the 3D renderings etc and the list goes on.

A solo practitioner usually has to wear many hats and may not be a Rhino specialist or even a SU specialist. So what they can get OOTB is about all they can afford unless they decide to branch out of course. For the SP “Archicad for Architects” has a different meaning than it does for big firms that have a multi-disciplinary team. The SP and smaller firms are on the back burner at present.

[jl_lt]

I like to retell this story at every chance i get:   i know some guys who first draw everything in 2dcad, then go to SU to refine design. Export and go back to 2dcad to prepare drawings to export to revit.  Then they model the project in revit.  Then export back everything to 2dcad to refine and clean the drawings from revit. While also mantaining a parallel SU model "to explore ideas more easily, which we then put in the revit model".

[mthd]

Imagine the time it would take to export and import into all those apps ? But if they are getting paid for their time and that’s what they know best, then that’s all cool. I couldn’t do that but I do have the bulk of my past work stored in Chief Architect. I can 2D DWG export into Archicad if I needed to access an old plan from there. I cannot 3D IFC export from CA into AC but it would be great if I could. We all make do with what we have used in the past and also invested much time and effort into. AC plays very well 3D export and import thankfully.

[DGSketcher]

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@jl_lt wrote:

I like to retell this story at every chance i get:   i know some guys who first draw everything in 2dcad, then go to SU to refine design. Export and go back to 2dcad to prepare drawings to export to revit.  Then they model the project in revit.  Then export back everything to 2dcad to refine and clean the drawings from revit. While also mantaining a parallel SU model "to explore ideas more easily, which we then put in the revit model".

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What does that say about the complexity of AC, are you saying it's easier to use that workflow than use AC? Or perhaps it's a cost issue. Why pay 3x the price per seat when your basic Cadders can do the same limited job for less? After yesterday's announcement I am wondering what the blow back will be from the Solo/Start community.

[mthd]

Hi @DGSketcher, I am a solo practitioner at present. CA from an Australian dollar perspective is not a good proposition for me because it can’t do what Archicad can do and probably never will. 

What announcement is that, do you have a link ?

[DGSketcher]

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@mthd wrote:

Imagine the time it would take to export and import into all those apps ? But if they are getting paid for their time and that’s what they know best, then that’s all cool. I couldn’t do that but I do have the bulk of my past work stored in Chief Architect. I can 2D DWG export into Archicad if I needed to access an old plan from there. I cannot 3D IFC export from CA into AC but it would be great if I could. We all make do with what we have used in the past and also invested much time and effort into. AC plays very well 3D export and import thankfully.

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There is a different perspective to this. Last week I had to open an old project file from 2008. At this point most AC users would probably be asking "OMG what is going to be missing?". Thankfully the project was fully intact. Why? Because it was done in Sketchup where their data structure, much like DWG allows legacy files to be correctly opened many years later. Perhaps CA has a similar strategy to allow you to do this. The only fix for this in AC is to refresh your old projects regularly to ensure they don't loose anything with each upgrade, but even then objects don't always move forward correctly.

[DGSketcher]

The big one at the top of the first community page.

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Graphisoft-Insights/Archicad-Start-Edition-2024-release-and-impo...

[mthd]

It’s a complicated process in CA to get old files to work again but I have figured out how to do it. I can still use AC templates from as far back as AC13 so far. I saved my work on a USB drive ages ago.

Yeah I found that announcement.

Edit: It didn’t say anything about AC Solo being discontinued ? ACSE is not really up to scratch but it might be the entry level will actually be ACS who knows ? I understand that it makes sense to discontinue ACSE and dedicate resources to developing ACF instead.

[jl_lt]

No. Quite the opposite actually. Ive seen them working with this workflow.  It is really mind blowing how inneficient it is.     I even had the audacity to tell them about the existence of archicad but "our clients want revit". 

The moral of the story is, Archicad, with all its own inneficiencies, idiocincracies and quirkiness is still miles aways better than these kind of processes i just described.

My gripe and frustration on archicad is that with a little focus and real leadership it could be much much better than all the competition put together.

[jl_lt]

I hope they are getting paid! 😁

having said that, as far as i know, the billable hours concept, at least for architectural services is mostly unheard of over here.  You can charge by the hour for on site supervision, but in general not for design and documentation, which is a fixed cost both parties (architect and client) agree on based on requirements and deliverables, which can later be adjusted if the scope changes.  If you finish the job in one sitting or it takes 2 months is up to the architect, as you get paid the same. 

That is why we insist so much on better dimensioning and documentation tools, because its in the documentation stage where Archicad reaches a bottleneck for us and hits us in the bottom line (but not as much as when we used 2d cad of course), even though it might even out with the earlier design stages like concept and schematics which are super fast and efficient with Archicad.