Architecture / Home Design Software?

shroudedmoon asks: "I'm looking for a solution to create a printable floor plan (line drawing) and 3D walkthrough of a house that I'm preparing to build. I've got a rough design on paper that I want to tweak on the screen, and then show to my architect/father so that he can create the finished and buildable blueprints. I've know there are consumer packages out there like 3D Home Architect from Broderbund, but I've heard that the graphics and navigation are less than spectacular. I also recall a Slashdot article, a couple of years ago, about the possibility of using the editor of one of the 3D shooters (Doom, maybe?) as an architectural tool, but I can't seem to locate it. Just curious if anyone out there has had any experience with anything similar, or which of the current 3D Shooters might have the best editor for something like this."

Comments

Re:Don't. Use a pencil.

[digitect]

Ok, I'll laugh. But for the record, verbal/oral communication isn't spacial. There's quite a difference between the iterative process in writing a paragraph and drawing form and space. I think my point is to not let the tool get in the way of the brain. We've all written plenty, but designing buildings is a completely different realm.

Re:Don't. Use a pencil.

[wfrp01]

you can't possibly draw contract document quality drawings with software at the same speed that you could with a pen and a good parallel bar.

Bullshit. You're certainly not the first architectural sophist to posit their ineptitude is really a skill. Idiot rantings like yours are an insult to every bona-fide architect who's actually spent the time and effort to properly learn their trade. Just because you know how to use crayolas does not mean you are an artist. The building is the art, not the design document. Not the construction documents. The building.

This is not to say you can't design with pencils. Obviously you can. Many great architects have. And for sketching initial design concepts, a pencil, some graph paper, and some trace can't be beat.

But if you don't then move quickly into CAD, you're wasting time. You're fudging dimensions when you don't have to. You're making mistakes you don't have to. And it shows up in the final product. Things don't quite fit right. Seat counts don't add up. The mechanical systems interfere with the structural systems.

The biggest problem with CAD is that when you are untrained, you can use the power of CAD to just as quickly make a huge mess as you can to make a good design. The best thing in this instance about using pencil and paper is that it slows the poor designers down so they don't screw stuff up too badly.

But the better reason for not drawing with some software package is that they don't design.

Neither do pencils. Good designs are iterative. Apples don't fall on people's heads, knocking functional designs in all their crystalline beauty loose into the world.

With pencils, you use trace. How long does it take you to trace the whole frickin' floor plan? Option 'A' .. Option 'B' .. Option 'Z'. Too long. You don't. Do you meticulously create stencils for each lab configuration you'd like to trace onto each new iteration of the floor plan? No. You fudge it. Lots and lots of fudge. Later someone who actually knows how to draw, in CAD, and hence design, will fix all of your stupid mistakes.

Re:Floorplan, and a pencil

[CharlieG]

Back about 3 years ago, I was in a situation - Buy a new house, or add on to the one I was living in

Started with a few quick pencil drawings, and that SEEMED to work.

I then went out and did 2 things

1)Bought a copy of "Floorplan", which I liked, and used it to model the existing house as best as I could

2)Payed an architect for a consult on zoning rules for my house

I then spent a few weeks desiging an idea that I liked - Nope, not down the the exact inch, but close - doing walk throughs, deciding on general things like window locations (Modeled the sunlight angles) and the like

THEN I went back to the architect and said "Here is the idea of what I want - yeah, it can be tweaked/changed - but this is the FEEL"

It comes down to this - some of us draw better on a computer, and are really comfortable with CAD

Of course, 3 weeks after the second stage with the architect, we found a new house - the joke is that the extention on the NEW house was almost exactly what I modeled on the old house. Paid the architect for work done till that point, and considered money well spent. It was only a few hundred at that point, as we hand not gotten serious

Re:Don't. Use a pencil.

[digitect]

You're certainly not the first architectural sophist to posit their ineptitude is really a skill.

Since you question my abilities, let me bore you with my credentials: I started using CAD in 1984. I've written 10,000 lines of AutoCAD VBA, plenty of AutoLisp, and set up CAD customization for two different offices, and was hired away to my current position for technical experiences. (Did some sysadmining, too, but that's another story.) I'm co-author of a GPL AutoCAD customization system that we hope to release in a few months. I've drawn working documents (100% CAD) for several $25m buildings, and have been a key team member for more than $100m of construction total. I know DataCAD, AutoCAD, Architectural Desktop and Vis, and have used Microstation, ClarisCAD, QCAD, even Draw Turtle back in the early 80's. I'm sure you'd like to think I don't know CAD so your points have some kind of weight, but all you say to me is that you don't yet have an appreciation for the weaknesses of CAD, or the computer in general. But have *you* ever drawn working drawings by hand?

The OP is looking for some simple tool to help him design a layout. (If his father really is an architect, he could draft the entire design in a fraction of the time this guy is going to take, and will probably revise most of it just so it's buildable.) CAD is the wrong tool for him, he doesn't even know what he's drawing. (Although I'm sure he thinks he does.)

Good designs are iterative....With pencils, you use trace. How long does it take you to trace the whole frickin' floor plan? Option 'A' .. Option 'B' .. Option 'Z'. Too long.

Well, I certainly wouldn't re-trace it! The whole point of using trace is that you draw new possibilities *over* the old, not redraw the whole thing! Have you ever designed with trace paper before in your life?! I think you're confusing design with drafting.

Even for someone who knows both, it's a matter of the task at hand. Over grid paper, I can iterate countless designs in just minutes. Drawing to precise scale (as is done with CAD) is not the first necessity for designing a building. Site strategies, basic building masses, circulation structures, access diagrams... all happen before scale. If you know what you're doing, sketching over grids gets you very close, without having to be anal about fractions of inches that matter nothing before you've even resolved schematic design.

Once schematic concepts are proven, drawing the program to scale is necessary to check those strategies. But even then, locking into CAD can ruin the flexibilities required to complete a successful project. One always has to be careful. You are quite emphatic the CAD is always a time saver, but I'd say that's true only for someone who has both plenty of experience and an equal enough skill in sketching so as not to bias the design into some course monolithic extrusion that has neither any efficiency *or* beauty.