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Joined: Thu, Jun 10, 2004
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Observation:
Architectural Industries are becoming increasingly standardized. I use other drafting softwares for when i want to design " Architecture" 3ds and Form Z, and use Revit for when I need to make a quick buck. Revit has made a place for me to fit in in the industry where other softwarez have not,.... not being a registered Architect, I still see it as an example of the main tools that are creating the automation of the industry. So if the industry becomes automated more and more, what does that mean. Well, if we could quit googling over our families for a second, we would notice that the design world is becoming denser in data, and user friendliness, but the drafting mediums will always have an inherent stint towards production, standardization, and possibly homogeneity. Good for money, bad for creativity.
Technically I could go the rest of my life and never become a registered Architect, because what Revit has taught me about building design alone was enough to break in, and it allows me to take jobs away from real Architects. Obviously this is a naive and non-sustainable idea, but i say it only, to merely point out that we, revitusers, are experinceing, i think only the first wave of the benefits of parametric systems,... but are there dangers in this?
I know there will be some architects out there poised to lecture me on the virtues of classical education and professional practice ethics, but i am more interested in the critiques of CAD systems and their effects on design, at this point. Moreover, there are probably plenty of others like me out there.
Post edited on 2006-02-10 20:25:27
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not sure if i get the point of your 'rant'. are you saying revit removes the need of architects? i am a building designer in australia (essentially similar in many ways to architect), and good design is always important whoever is doing it. i think the world needs good architects and designers.
but taking your revit thoughts further - i have found revit to be a marvelous design tool, as well as all its great documentation features. i would argue that any building design professional becomes more skillfull by using it.
you say things will become homogenous by using revit and other software. well . . i am finding the exact opposite. in my practice we are creating anything we want to use on a building, and the building overall. it has really encouraged us to try things that initially look difficult in 2d.
so there are my thoughts!
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Revit is a tool. The one I use but not limited to. Whether it's a pencil or lazer scanning a complex model there still has to be a design. Remember that designing buildings is not necessarily producing good architecture. Good architecture is a result of insightful design, not the use of a program. The program merely makes it easier, in many respect, to explore your design. I am a fim advocate of computers for use in design, just as I am a firm advocate for word processing programs to write with. But those tools, alone, won;t make you a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Having Revit or a typewriter are just starts. You have the tools, now use them to tranfer your inspiration to the apropriate mediim.
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To an extent i agree with you (the original poster). I absolutely do not think that having such a tool as Revit is stiffling our creativity, because it is certainly up to us of our own discipline to decide what medium an original concept is brought out in. To date, i still do most of my initial sketches on napkins at restaurants... Its just where i relax and get the most creative, lol.
That said, where the issue does lie is that with such a tool as Revit, our education must take one extra step. ONE, we must learn what we want to create (this is our design, per se... for me, on a napkin). TWO, we must know how to actually build it (classical education or not, a design is useless if it is just a pipedream), and THREE (and this is where our *tools* affect us, we must know how to create it in such a realm as Revit.
Back in my days of 2D drafting with AutoCAD, i became aware of a few things: The first, is that we loved AutoCAD becuase it was a faster, virtual pencil. We didnt have to know anything more than we did when we drew by hand, because we simply had a faster way to draw things. EVEN SO, i noticed an extreme lack of ornate detail in our buildings. True, the Gothic period of architecture is long since gone, and it happened before AutoCad, yes... BUT, i couldnt help but notice how much easier it was to devise ornate details by hand, than to draft them in autoCAD. Suddenly, drafting decreasing radius moldings, and trim, and isometrics of ornate columns... It all became so much more daunting, when there was ANOTHER medium to learn how to do it in (CAD drafting). NOW, in addition to figuring out how to draft such a *design* we must also devise a way to model it, if we are to implement it with our new *tools*.
I couldnt help but notice in my last year of architecture school, that during critiques, words like "extrude" and "sweep" and "morphed" were being used more and more while my classmates explained their "designs."
Certainly, the toos we use are not to blame for our own thinking (design), but i will assert that as our tools put on us another challange of *learning how to make what we make* that it is slowly creeping in to our initial designs as well.
that said, i love Revit. 
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I realise that Revitcity is not the place to work out my criticisms of automation and standradization in the design industries. I only mean to survey a kind of "crisis" in Architecture , in general , and expected many of the responses, like "Revit is a tool." (wow, really). Nor do i suppose to try to negate Revit's benefits, amidst my own success with it. Everyone on this site probably loves Revit, and i don;t have a chip on my shoulder or anything. I just noticed that Revit produced a quantum leap for my enterprenurial building design efforts...and find myself feeling sorry for Interns doing schedules and drawing toilets for three years. And yet I also see how archaic, and perhaps unnecessary these parts of Interning are.
So what is my point? My point is that if Revit has been this benficial to push guys like me into the playing field, what will parametric systems do in the coming years? I state that they will overly autommate to some extent, and in some capacity, help turn what we might call classic Architectural practices into merely construction sciences (if this is not already the case). i pose this here, to see if there are people out there concerned about this as well, or are you all just so thrilled to be using Revit, that you didn't notice that the bar was just raised for the old farts and the beaux arts....
..and so this might happen to us one day too, and sooner than we think.
Post edited on 2006-02-13 10:41:36
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we are starting to see homogenization/lacks of creativity in our office already, and we haven't even begun a project in revit yet. hell, in the class, an associate was talking about "cranking out the easy projects for profit, to focus on the 'design' projects" - they are all design projects. there is
revit is NOT... is NOT... a design tool. in order to 'design' effectively, you have to draw in 2d and allow the software to understand in 3d. someone said it, the software allows you to document/communicate the design, the ideas aren't inherent to the software. the software can't comment on the drab, uninspiring nature of our educational buildings... it can't comment on the sterile, non-healthy environment we choose to breath into hospitals, it can't comment on the homogenization /clichéd nature of our developing neighborhoods, including the retail center. it's also just another tool in a box tools. when you get a vice grip, you don't throw all your other tools away, because, hey i can adjust this one to fit whatever i need...
the extruded box has been the easiest thing to 'design' since the beginning of time, why have we been inundated with that concept for that last 20 years...?
what i'm afraid of is that architects have not expressed their true value to the world... they have gotten so caught up in being recognized as 'a professional' the (publicly perceived) artist in us has taken a back seat. now the only thing an architect can do is "provide good service"... well, any architect can do that. so if the contractor hires architects, hey the profession of 'architect' becomes a job title for a general contractor. things like revit make that transition easier and at the same time more difficult to justify any true soul, intangible aspects of 'the design' ( i hate that word now, by the way), because.... "look, now i can re-adapt what would have taken me six months in one week - we've just made a huge profit" "but there isn't much integrity in that" "the last i checked we are a business" (actual portion of a conversation)
and in case anyone is wondering, i'm 30, have no degree and no license - when i was 22 i read peter blakes no place like utopia and decided this was something i can do... so i worked my way around old-school apprentice style - found a few architects to take me under their wing and learn learn learn. so formfuction33, i see your point also... technology and my ability to pick it up so fast has propelled me in this field and has helped me to learn construction practices quickly... the non-self-reflective types are draining this industry, NOT the ones who care about truly inspiring architecture - and that has NOTHING to do with a "classical education". like i said i think the architect has more to worry about from the contractor than she does from the "uneducated"
i once had an architect tell me "our main job is to problem solve... so until we can figure out how to make buildings on an assembly line, that's what we have to do..." - i don't think i'd ever been so depressed to find myself working for someone like that...
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i enjoy the problem solving nature of architecture. i also dont consider myself a creative designer. i love what revit provides me, and that is a problem identifier. the ability to cut instantaneous sections and see where things are not working 3-dimensionally is a great tool. what i see revit doing, is getting rid of the "drafter" position at a lot of firms. you have to know building systems, and construction methods to properly model buildings. without understanding the "architectural method", people will struggle in Revit. i am not going to touch the "revit is stifling the creative process" argument. there are other tools architects can use that will aide us in our persuit of whatever it is we are after. In my short career, Revit is the best tool i have seen in continuing my education in constructability and building systems. and that is why i love it. With the architectural community desperately lacking the 35-43 year old PA's due to the recession when those years graduated from college, young architects like myself need all the help we can get. the mentoring just isnt there across the board. i have been fortunate to work with 2 'complete' architects in my short career, and combine those experiences with Revit i am blessed to be where i am today. enough rambling... just my $0.02
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it's amazing how many people worry about how technological progress
might be a setback somehow.. whole nations rise up to support a dictator
that claims technology is evil and must be turned back.. i wonder how many
objections there were to the invention of the pencil..
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