All the reasons Revit is “bad”
It seems like the more time I spend with Revit and the more places I visit to teach Revit, the affinity for people to absolutely hate the program seems to grow and grow. I know what you are thinking. “Oh gosh another blog about why people hate Revit”. That’s partially true, but I would rather provide some intelligent information to go along with those downright hate filled comments. Here it goes a list of the most common things people hate about Revit and a solution to those problems.
HATE: It can’t be used in the Design Development Phase.
SOULUTION: To me this is absolutely crazy. Not only can Revit be used in the DD phase, but it can actually help you perform complex analysis that normally left you building a physical model, taking that model outside with a sundial, sketchbook, and a camera and studying for hours or days. If you still don’t believe that Revit can actually help make your designs better then check out Chapter 23 of Mastering Revit Architecture 2011 or 2012. I feel this will be a focus for development at Autodesk for the next few years. Expect the DD phase in Revit to become even more dynamic than it is!
HATE: It doesn’t do CD’s as well as AutoCAD
SOLUTION: The first question that pops up when people say this is, “Have you actually tried to use Revit yet?” Revit is an amazing CD software and can perform all of the same tasks as AutoCAD without the bother of command line interfaces, xrefs, and blocks. Next time someone tells you not to use Revit because it is terrible at creating CD’s tell them that they must be using the wrong program because the Revit I know does beautiful CD’s. If someone is leaves scratching their head, that’s good.
HATE: It’s too time consuming to learn.
SOLUTION: This is always going to be an argument with any new software someone is trying to implement or learn. You always feel like the risk is not going to be worth the reward. Just remember that Revit is becoming the new standard and soon will be, much like AutoCAD a decade and a half ago. If you don’t try to adopt new technologies your company will eventually be eclipsed by time and will soon be struggling more and more for work. Ask any company that is still hand drafting how much revenue they are pouring in every year?
HATE: It doesn’t render well
SOULUTION: Understand that Revit is not a rendering program and probably will never be. That’s why Autodesk has 3DS Max as well. However you can get some amazing renders out of Revit. Check out www.jereme.webs.com to see some great Revit renderings. With any rendering software it comes down to the ability of the user to understand what the end result needs to be and how to get there. If you can’t create a good rendering in Revit, guess what? You won’t be able to create a good rendering in any program. Rendering takes a special focus and expertise more closely related to a photographer than anything else. Don’t waste your time trying to learn a new program just because you don’t think Revit can render well. Instead, focus on learning how to take better photos then implement those qualities into a camera angle or view in Revit. Remember that renders are all about the details!
HATE: It doesn’t detail well and has terrible graphics.
SOLUTION: First off, of course “it” doesn’t detail well, because that implies that Revit creates the details for you. That is completely false! Everything in Revit is 100 percent controlled by the user so anything can be detailed in any way that you see fit. Because everything is controlled by you, the users, then this hate boils down to your own ability to be able to do anything in Revit. I have made plenty of drawings that professors and professionals that hate Revit say, “wow, beautiful drawing, and good use of CAD”. I have had to tell them that I did the drawing in Revit and they still don’t believe me most of the time. Proof has to be shown on my computer inside of Revit. I must say in this case that if you think that its Revits fault for having poor graphics I have to stop you. It’s you who has the poor graphic skills and poor understanding and you should be doing everything you can to improve your graphic ability.
HATE: It crashes too much and I lose lots of work.
SOLUTION: This is another area that I will have to partial agree with the masses. I believe Revit does crash a little too much and that is 80 percent Autodesks fault and 20 percent our fault for performing inappropriate tasks like trying to move a fully constrained model over 1’ all at once. Every program is going to have times that it crashes and it’s hard to prevent it from ever happening. However, you can almost always prevent the loss of work you have done. Just remember to save before and after an import task inside of Revit. Eventually you will learn that Revit has certain areas in which saving before are a must. I hardly ever lose work now and it’s mainly due to my “6th sense” for knowing when something is going to make Revit crash and saving before I even try the task.
In closing, if you came here to find out some shocking reason why you or the firm you work for shouldn’t use Revit I am sorry I disappointed you. That was kind of my point though. Sneaky, huh? Revit is an amazing software and will continue to develop over the next decade. I really hope everyone reads this and has a new take on Revit. In the end, its better to embrace new technology than to wish 10 years from now that you would have embraced it while you had the chance.
Thanks for reading! Got anything to ad? Well, let me know about it!
Follow me on Twitter @jadamthomas
Tags: Anger, Bad, Happy, Hate, Mad, Revit, Rift in the Space Time Continuum, Solutions, Sucks
Posted in Architecture, Revit, Tutorial, Updates | 4 Comments »
Virtual Aggregation of Consumer Architecture
Two things will always remain true.
1. People want things faster and faster.
2. You or your company’s presence on the Interwebs is a must.
Imagine telling a client to head to a site to construct, or select all of the amenities, square footage bedrooms, etc., of what they want to have in their home and as they are selecting items a 3D model is being reveled and built in real time reflecting all of the changes that they are making with just the click of a mouse. Sure, they may not be able to do every last thing that they way, but they would have almost unlimited options within the building blocks the Architect has designed. The idea is there is a system that the Architect has actually designed and been able to incorporate multiple variations into the model on the back-end before a client even arrives in an office or visits a website. The system could update within constraints that the Architect has specified that meets his or her design language. The client wants the master next to a spare bedroom that will become their kid’s room in the future? No problems just check those boxes please.
What would we begin to even design a system like this in though? Think really hard. Lets use my favorite program of choice of course, Revit! We can already control multiple parameters of families and components in Revit we just need to tweak the controls a little bit. What about using yes/no statements and conditional statements? Sure, that can work! We can even hide interior walls, roof, or floors depending on the adjacencies that the client may want in the future. I refer to these parametric models as all-in-one mega families. With a mega family you aren’t just creating an object and the sizes, or materials of it. Instead, you are creating the ability for one unit to become every unit of a home by clicking simple yes/no parameters.
The next problem occurs when we try to have the client interact with the mega-family we created. Seems how not many clients actually know or understand Revit we need to put all of this mapped ability within an interface that most of us know and love. Mapping these variations into a web browser would allow the client to pop open a website, and start to answer questions about the home they are wanting. These questions would tie directly back into the parameters that the Architect mapped earlier. As the questions are being answers the model on the screen is auto-regenerating right in front of them. Instead of having the image above it looks more like the one below.
Why does this even matter? What wrong with how Architects perform their duties? The answer is that there is nothing wrong with what an Architect does now. However, this certainly does matter. I have a firm belief that as the need for Architects to become more tech savvy the ability to finish a project in faster and faster times becomes even greater. Instead of designing each and every single home or commercial building that walks in the office from scratch they could spend time developing a system. That system could be implemented worldwide and has the ability to almost completely cut out the Design Development stage of a project. Ultimately it’s about the client anyway and they want everything now, not 4 weeks from now. I firmly believe that anyone that figures out how to aggregate virtual modeling to the internet in a way that clients can use the front end while Architects are working the back-end will finally turn the tides on Architecture as we know it today.
In the end you still wide up with a product that has the Architects thumbprint all over it. The only difference is that the time spent on each product because shorter and shorter thus allowing for a wider client base and an expanding business model. There will always be space in the business ecosystem of architecture for niche appeal, but who is going to be the first to reach out to the consumer?
Thanks for reading! Tell me what you think.
Follow me on Twitter @jadamthomas
Tags: Aggregation, Architecture, Awesome, Consumers, Fast Paced, Mega Family, Mind Blowing, Products, Revit, Virtual
Posted in Architecture, Design, Revit, Sustainibility | No Comments »
Consumer Archtiecture
Is Architecture a Good or a Service?
The answer that I have gotten mostly is that Architecture is a Service that provides a Good. It can be argued many ways, but I tend to lean towards Architecture being a Good more than a Service especially when it comes to designing homes.
Google defines Good and Service as follows:
Goods – Are the items that we buy, physical things we can touch.
Service – (verb) Perform Routine Maintenance or repair work on (a vehicle or machine) As a (noun) The Action of Helping or Doing work for someone.
Technically speaking Architecture is both. Correct? Lets find out!
I have recently been blessed with the ability to go to India to study and tour the entire country. Being a student of Architecture I am naturally more curious about meeting Architects, Engineer, Contractors, and of course see some of the British influenced design. I have been able to have many conversations with professionals from every corner of the world so far in my short stay and some of the same arguments keep coming up when discussing Residential Architecture.
The Architect wants:
- Cheaper Housing Construction
- Solar Responsive Structures
- Modular Designs
- Wants to know where the Future of Architecture is heading
The Clients want:
- Affordable Housing
- Fast Construction
- “Green” Products
- They want to control the project and make sure everything they want is included.
At a glance it seems like everyone actually wants the same things, so what’s the problem? The problem exists by each member wanting the same end results by pulling from different ends of the spectrum, like a giant game of Tug-o-War. It’s actually nearly impossible for the Architect to make more money while lowering cost and meeting the clients “green” needs. Thusly, how does the Architect provide all of the features they were thinking about while still allowing the client to be emotionally “in-control” of the project? The short answer is that they could be a part time Magician, which would solve a lot of issues. These arguments lead me to start thinking about Residential Architecture as a Consumer Good because to be a Magician and Architect seems a little crazy.
Lets focus on Residential Architecture only for now. Has anyone really figured out how to corner the market for Residential Design? In my humble opinion, not even close! Instead, Developers and Carpenters have taken this area away from Architects by building suburbs, droves of cookie cutter homes with the promise that by raising your family here you will be better for it. You could raise a nice cookie cutter family, and have a cookie cutter life. What joy! Wait, what? What happened to wanting to be unique? What happened to striving to be something grander than cookie cutter?
The question still remains. How can we provide Architecture to the consuming in public in the fast paced technological world that we live in? To begin to answer this question I find myself looking at Legos! The basic principal of Legos is that with just a handful of different pieces you can create millions of different things. Lego actually did something brilliant if you really think about it. Kids constantly change toys and want something new. Instead of fighting in a growing toy war for kids attention Lego instead provided a solution to a child’s short term satisfaction with a particular toy by basically given them the key to create anything they desired. Guess what, it worked! Kids and parents loved Legos and still do! Instead of buying a toy you were really buying the ability to make hundreds or thousands or toys. The attitude seems to be, here, make what you want. This was absolutely brilliant, right?
Translating Legos into Building Units
What can we learn from Lego in order to provide a solution to Residential Architecture that gives the control back to the Architect, instead of investors that do not have the clients best interests at steak? Today the idea of building with units or blocks is termed Modular Housing. That term leaves a very bad taste in my mouth as well as millions of people all over the world. Buying a home that is made in parts and seemingly not designed is not something people want to pay a premium for. At this point you are probably thinking that I am saying Consumer Architecture = Modular Housing, but I’m not. Rather, I am saying that Consumer Architecture = The aggregation of a home based on units controlled by the client. Modular housing is actually great! The only problem is that the Architect is still in complete control of the design and in the end the cost is higher than the cookie cutter home we mentioned earlier. What if we designed the units instead and allowed the client to “design” the home? Absurd, right? I believe that whoever can bring out the feelings a child has while playing with Legos within Residential design will ultimately start to shift the balance and trend of housing all together. If the client feels, and knows that they are in control of the units then they become emotionally invested in the home. That emotional investment is what the client needs, and wants. The design and solution to different problems is what we crave as Architects and Designers. This is a win-win, but its not going to be easy to provide a solution.
In the end it’s not the solution to the problem that will conquer all but rather how the idea is marketed and distributed.
I would like to here from you! Where do you think Architecture is headed in the future and do you agree or disagree with Architectures need to become more of a consumer good?
Follow me on Twitter @jadamthomas
Next up: How Virtual Aggregation of these Building Blocks will make or break a company pursuing this idea.
Tags: Architecture, future construction, life, modular houses
Posted in Architecture, Design, Sustainibility | No Comments »
Small Designs are Beautiful too!
Here is a small collection of really great bar-code designs I found. The first article came from www.fastcompany.com and it really got me thinking. If someone, somewhere is taking design to such great, small detail why can’t we are Architects do our best to create beautiful buildings, and objects. If the level of detail placed in something as simple as a bar-code was applied to Architecture we would begin to create a world that people truly loved and would take care of.
Posted in Sustainibility | No Comments »
Design to Virtual Reality
I think for many of us, that moment of inspiration tends to strike in places that aren’t necessarily our “design” spaces. Often, an image or a random topic of conversation can be the genesis of a thought or a system that our minds eventually begin to form.
For ADL, our goal has always been a concerted effort between the various tools of design and creation in order to achieve that final design product. As soon as Adam saw this post, he decided that it provided the perfect opportunity to demonstrate just how effectively Revit can be used in order to move a product into the next phase of development.
Following, a final rendering of a Revit family by our very own Adam Thomas, alongside the initial sketches that Amanda drew during her History class this Summer:
Tags: Architecture, Design, Revit, Students
Posted in Architecture, Design, Revit | No Comments »
