Category: Office Management

Virtual autoCAD

One of the most expensive purchases of any architecture and design office is drafting software. Not only does it cost anywhere from $1000 to $3000 a seat but the software changes yearly and every three versions the file formats tend to change as well. Whenever that happens firms either need to buy into the new version or be left behind. Autodesk has come up with their own solution to this, yearly subscriptions. The initial charge is the same as a usual one seat license, but every year they charge the firm about $500 per seat and send you the updated software. This is supposed to save you money while giving them a guarenteed revive stream, which it does but each version still needs better hardware to operate at maximum efficiency. That’s about a $2000 investment per machine on at least a three year rolling clock. In all, that’s a lot of expense especially for a new found firm. It’s no wonder people turn to piracy, unauthorized installs, and multiple seats.

Citrix has a different solution. They have developed a virtualization software which can eliminate the rolling hardware expense. This software is like most virtualization software, it lives on a host box which users can access through the desktop client. Where this differs from most virtualization servers is that it allows the users to run OpenGL software like REVIT, 3D Studio Max or AutoCAD with no real perceptible latency. This means that users experience the software as if it was on their own machine. In a large firm this could be a major cost saver, but in a small firm I’m not that sure it’s feasible. First, servers are expensive, especially those with good graphics capabilities. The amount of money saved on user terminals could easily be less than the cost of one server especially if there are only a few boxes being saved. Second, this software cost as much as a single seat of any CAD software on its own. If there are more than a few users this cost could be made up in the hardware savings but for a small office it could be prohibitively expensive. Third, this requires staff that understands servers and other complicated networking infrastructure. The cost for this kind of support onsite or off could ruin the brute cost savings exercise, yet a large firm should have this kind of staff already.

All told, for small firms, there really is no way to save money here. CAD is an expensive proposition and yet one that all office have to purchase at some time. I just wish there was a more cost effective option.

Integrated Project Delivery

The AIA website has an interesting article on the future of the architectural process.   This is something that greatly concerns me.   As the office I work for, and many others, contemplate moving to BIM there are great changes that will need to be made in house.   Not only will the time required for tasks change, but the general break up of time will shift more heavily towards the beginning.   The most interesting thing about this article is that it discusses a the change in nomenclature:

  • Predesign becomes conceptualization
  • Schematic design becomes criteria design
  • Design development becomes detailed design
  • Construction documents become implementation documents
  • Agency review begins at conceptualization
  • Bidding becomes buyout
  • Construction is still construction

By changing the language of phases, it makes it easier to break away from old contracts dictating time ratios, and forge a new understanding about how Integrated Project Delivery and BIM will affect billing and management.

[W O R D S B Y…Integrated Project Delivery and the Fully Engaged Emerging Professional]

Learning from the bottom up.

Image via poetpainter

[Image via poetpainter.]

Poetpainter has a great post entitled: Why I Am Not A Manager. That’s where I found the above image.

This image really speaks to me. I think it illustrates the greatest problem in architecture practice. The hierarchy of offices are set up mostly as managers and “managees”. There really is no place for collaboration or any challenging of the status quo. Sure offices say they value the opinions of the interns and non-managers, but the whole hierarchy leads itself so that their ideas have to be greatly filtered before they reach anyone who can make any decisions. Now this is partly good, many interns don’t know their proverbial ass from their elbow when they first join an office, but I fear that a lot of stale architecture is made because the firms designing the buildings are top-down. The principals work with a lead designer who has a vision and then everyone else works to craft that vision. Studio Managers take direction from the designer, and in turn direct project architects, who craft red lines and cartoon sets so that the interns can generate drawings. All those layers are like the children’s game of telephone, in every step the designer’s ideas get diluted by management, and in the end even if the design was steller the final product is usually mediocre at best.

Now to envision a more leadership driven office would take a whole different outlook on architectural practice. Designers would be embedded in studio groups and taking the role of the leader. They may generate the basic program and idea, but a system of valued employees should be able to flush that idea out without having so much dictatorial direction. Granted there will be employees who know less than others about the mechanics of architecture, and they would be helped by their teammates and leader to reach the goal. Trial and error, especially with a safety net, leads to better productivity than examples of the correct solution without any knowledge of the wrong ones. This type of structure could still allow for an upper ring of leaders/principals, but it would mean a more cohesive project team instead of the fractionalized teams so often seen in today’s offices.

Breaking the Autodesk Hegemony

In the modern architect’s office there are no more drafting boards; if they exist, they serve as extensions of the desktop and become semi-permanent homes for check sets, red lines, specs and trace paper sketches. Instead, we work in CADD – Computer Aided Design and Drafting – usually short for Autodesk’s AutoCAD or Architectural Desktop/AutoCAD Architecture software. This software (in practice) is little more than hand-drafting+; it is rare to find a firm using the full three dimensional capabilities of the software. In addition, Autodesk’s CAD is PC only. There exist a handful of other pieces of drafting software for the PC – specifically Bently’s Microstation comes to mind, but truly Autodesk is the most popular girl at the dance. Mac users on the other hand have a rough and varied landscape of numerous semi and fully professional software solutions. Since purchasing my first Mac when Leopard was released (a Mac Mini – my last apple before this was a IIc), I have been trying as many of these programs as i can find. All in all i can not seem to find one that balances the speed of use of AutoCAD and its keyboard commands and a good integration with the mac interface. Because of this I feel trapped in the chaotic world of XP and Vista and, even thought it would be in my office’s best interest and i know solutions must exist out there, I cannot in good conscience advise anyone who does full time CADD work to run a Mac.

As BIM (Building Information Modeling) becomes more pervasive, requested and sought after as a selling feature of an office, the fundamental functioning of computers in the design and documentation of buildings will be changing. At the moment Autodesk’s Revit is the real player on the scene and, like the rest of Autodesk’s software, it is PC only. I would really like to see a software developer take advantage of the better architecture of the Mac system and the upcoming Grand Central technology which will be a part of of OSX 10.6 – Snow Leopard. Better access to multi-core processing could help give BIM the speed and processing push it would need to become the de facto method of building construction, especially if the rendering times are speeded up by better hardware. For my current office, the savings from not having to outsource our renderings could easily pay for better hardware and software training. In addition, a logical user intuitive interface in-line with the mac development standards would help win over many of the “old dogs” in the profession who refuse to learn a new way of working.

With the specter of Windows XP’s death on the none too distant horizon and a general fear and loathing of Vista the climate is ripe for a industry wide transition to apple. As far as “artistic” professions go, architecture is the only one I can think of which is PC based and that comes form using an engineering based software. With the switch to building models instead of vector data a more graphic friendly solution seems around the corner. Now if only there was an easy network enterprise integration for the mac os like there is for windows business and I could easily see offices like mine making the switch. If this does exist – and I’m sure it does in one form or another – I have no knowledge of it.