So we're moving forward with Autodesk Revit in the office and so far it seems to be allowing us to produce more with less effort. Sure, there are bumps in the road as we explore this new software, but overall it looks like the transition will be relatively smooth.

But software alone isn't always the answer, flexibility is required also. Often progress and growth require us to evaluate all of our methods and practices. Just because we do something a certain way for years, it doesn't mean that they should remain the same or that things can't improve, or even that we're correct to begin with! And so asking additional questions as a production staff is essential. It's especially beneficial as we transition from AutoCAD to Revit because as we learn new software we can also learn to spot areas to improve.

We started by looking at the construction documents we produce and where we could improve them for our customers and contractors. This lead to a discussion of fonts and tags and ultimately to our document template. Revit doesn't work like AutoCAD and so our borders and tags and even our font style needed to be reviewed to see if we really wanted to drag all of that history into the new program. Ultimately we didn't want a lot of that baggage. Revit has a very clean design for construction documents. Default fonts and tags are much different than what the office was using in AutoCAD prompting us to look at whether we could live with these changes. Some things we like and some we didn't. One thing we really didn't care for was the default font. Unfortunately, Revit defaults to Arial...a font style that I can't stand and that needless to say didn't resonate well with anyone else either.

In our training we were advised NOT to change the default settings for anything. It's not bad advice. It insures that the drawing package will have a uniformity and usability for everyone. Conversely is also means that the drawings look like everyone else's. Thus the dilemma. 

Our final decision was to throw caution to the wind and begin to modify the program and set up our own templates for drawings. Every Font, Tag, Border, and Family that had the default text would need to be duplicated and modified. It sounded like a daunting task, and looked to be one as we began trying, however as we worked through the problem we realized that perhaps it wasn't as hard as we'd first thought. Creating our own identity wasn't impossible after all. If we'd just accepted what we'd been told or weren't willing to examine ourselves then we would be limiting our knowledge and learning how the program works, we would discover new things and we'd have been saddled with Arial Font... 

​

Now we're designing our own office template which will incorporate the changes we make into all our future projects. We will revisit the template as needed to update or modify things as required. And ultimately we will review things semi-annually to make sure we're still satisfied with our choices and how they help us to provide a superior product to our customers and the people building their projects.

In thinking about things the most important question might be, "Should we be asking questions more often?" Some people get into a rut, they become stagnant and comfortable with the status quo. We should never be so comfortable that we stop questioning and exploring. Stagnation is the enemy of creativity, and in this business of design creation that can spell disaster. I hope we never stop questioning our methods, I hope we always continue to create new and wonderful things. If this sounds like the kind of thinking that appeals to you, then I encourage you to contact us for your future projects. We want to explore and ask questions, and we want to produce the best possible designs for our customers. Make sure to check back often as I continue to discuss our work and our future.

-Lars ​

This past Monday the company got together for our annual holiday party. We had a lovely evening at the Orchard House in Peru NY with our families, some great food, drink and plenty of good cheer. This time of year is often a time for reflection and thanksgiving and certainly this year AEDA has a lot to reflect upon and be thankful for. We have had the opportunity to continue serving the community and designing some really wonderful projects and we've expanded outward to reach new communities and customers. Truly it has been a year of blessings.
Our push into new areas of marketing has also yielded new insight into how we can create new partnerships and bring new business to the company, and our website is becoming a great way to see how we work and what we're doing.
Traci Perrigo has become the new office manager here this year and she has become an integral part of the company, assisting us in countless ways to improve our production and communications. We've added a new phone system to better serve our customers and staff and we're rolling out Autodesk Revit as our primary design software in order to bring the most up-to-date program available to our project partners! 
Overall 2015 has been a good year for Architectural & Engineering Design Associates and we look forward to and even better year in 2016! To all of our friends, family and those who will become our friends in the future here's wishing you all the best and we hope to see you at the office soon. Whether you need an architectural project or just would like to stop by to say hello, we welcome you to come see us. Thank you all for helping to make our company better each day, without all of you we wouldn't be here.
-Lars

I'm sorry that I've been away for more than a couple weeks, as I had intended to post entries here on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, however I hope that once you read the following you'll forgive any lapse...

AEDA is beginning a new phase in the life of its design team. As of 2016 we will begin to use Autodesk Revit as our primary modeling and construction document program. This is a radical change for the company as it will entail ramping down our Autocad usage while we introduce the new software. 

Fear not good citizens! As of the 4th of December all of our production staff have had training of one type or another in the usage and implementation of this great new program. So we're fully prepared and ready to make the transition and provide a new level of service to our project partners.

To start I'd like to give a basic overview of how Revit is different than traditional CAD programs and then talk a little about the level at which we will be implementing the software into our production.

Autodesk Revit is more than just a Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CAD/CADD) program, it implements a newer concept called Building Information Modeling (BIM). What that means in lay terms is that our projects will now basically be a database from which we can extract information about a building to convey design and construction intent to everyone. No longer will a window or door just be a collection of lines that look like a window or door. Revit allows the user to virtually construct a building on the computer using actual product data to simulate the constructed project. Manufacturer's data is married to components and they are used to create the virtual building. This model can then be manipulated in a variety of ways to produce both the construction documents and specifications for everything that could go into the building. The specificity of this data can range from a more general design intent all the way down to modeling the smallest bracket and screw. For most projects that level of detail isn't required for construction but it is interesting to know that this level of detail is achievable. 

Above is a small and very rough rendering of a house I'm working on. It may not look like much now but it actually represents a pretty substantial change from how the office used to model buildings. Traditionally I would take a two dimensional CAD file and then bring it into a modeling program to create a rendering. In Revit this is no longer necessary. I created the view above in about 20 seconds from the model I built to assemble my construction documents. 

So our projects will now integrate our CAD, modeling, rendering and construction documents into a single effort. We are extremely excited to begin using this full-time within the office and pioneer this software for the region. We fully intend to be the premiere architectural and engineering firm in Northern NY and we feel that Autodesk Revit is helping us to continue in that effort.

​Of course we wouldn't go into this program blindly or without some sort of formal instruction...

Three of our staff members traveled to Albany NY this past week in order to get fundamentals training in Autodesk Revit from the great people at Imaginit Technologies. Our instructor, Brian Tuffin, was a great teacher and we couldn't be happier with the results of our 3 days of intensive instruction. We were fortunate to be the only firm at this training course meaning that we could go at a pace that suited us and receive specialized attention specific to our questions and concerns. This training is merely the beginning of our delving into Revit as we will continue to use and grow as Revit users. We will be continuing our training within the next couple of weeks with an online training course through Imaginit and studying methods and techniques we discover on our own. 

Our team members are very excited about the future for AEDA and our customers. We hope that if you have a project in mind that you will consider AEDA and I personally hope that this blog post has given some clarity and insight into the future of Architecture and Engineering for Plattsburgh NY and the surrounding region. 

-Lars

P.S. I'll have another short entry this week to make up for the gap so stay tuned!