This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Practice Management Member Conversations and Project Delivery .
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In my twenty years of practicing architecture I have watched and taken part in the CAD revolution. From drafting in lead, then ink and plastic lead to CAD on a VAX centralized computer system with stations as large as a small car, and finally to PC based workstations. CAD has changed the profession, some for the better, some for the worse.
Somewhere about six or seven years ago, it took a very bad turn.
AutoDesk, who had made great strides in improving productivity for architects and engineers to that time, turned on us. I saw it as a strategic move on their part to exploit the fact that they had achieved a captive audience, and wanted to start peddling that access to vendors through online links and libraries, directly to the desk of the CAD drafter and architect. If you owned their stock back then, you got well.
When CAD became a standard practice in most firms, it was a drafting tool. Interns and CAD drafts-people essentially copied sketches into the computer. Many architects resisted learning CAD because they didn't want to get stuck in a position of drafting for another architect. I did not resist because I saw it as an opportunity to learn to design on the computer. When I became licensed, I was one of the only architects I knew who could, and it was a huge advantage for me. By the time I was in my late 20's almost all architects I knew were CAD literate.
CAD had reached a point where it was simple enough for architects to use it, yet effective enough that it really boosted productivity. But AutoDesk just couldn't let well enough alone, they had to fix what wasn't broken. They have now made it so complex that once again architects are not able to do their own drafting. It is all in the name of "collaborating" and BIM.
How much of the capability of CAD/BIM is really to boost productivity, and how much of it is to maintain AutoDesk market share, and provide job security for CAD drafts-people? I think it could be much simpler, but that is just one middle aged architect's opinion.
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Alan Burcope AIA, MBA, LEED AP
VP Project Development
HBE Corporation
Saint Louis MO
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