Christopher Griffiths
The Architectural Rev(it)olution 04/21/2011
When I was about 8 years old, dad finished building the house I'd live in for the next 10 years. He's a proper engineer. I remember watching him draw the design on the 5'x5' professional drafting table, still in his office. I remember him laying the blueprints out on it, and explaining what the pictures meant. When he let me sit on the big gray drafting stool, I loved the feel of the table, the precision of the mounted guides, the one thirty-secondth of an inch divisions on the rulers! He let me use it for school projects: drawing cartoons, making my "x=y" graphs ever so perfect - as soon as I could I took the "drafting" elective in middle school.
And now, twenty odd years later, I'm sitting in a coffee shop finishing up the details of a new house design in Revit. My model takes up about 1 square foot of space on my laptop. When I want him to see it, even if he's 3000 miles away, I shoot a quick email: "check out the new revisions," and he opens a model that gives him a 3-d rendering with any level detail level you can imagine. I can completely change the plumbing design, redo the structural calculations, revamp the electrical loading, or check out the shadows from my lighting system. All with no eraser marks.
When it's all done, I can post the files online and share it with anyone who has half a mind to search for "energy-efficient house plans" on Google. I'm reminded of Ray Kurzweil and his observations on the coming technological singularity.
And now, twenty odd years later, I'm sitting in a coffee shop finishing up the details of a new house design in Revit. My model takes up about 1 square foot of space on my laptop. When I want him to see it, even if he's 3000 miles away, I shoot a quick email: "check out the new revisions," and he opens a model that gives him a 3-d rendering with any level detail level you can imagine. I can completely change the plumbing design, redo the structural calculations, revamp the electrical loading, or check out the shadows from my lighting system. All with no eraser marks.
When it's all done, I can post the files online and share it with anyone who has half a mind to search for "energy-efficient house plans" on Google. I'm reminded of Ray Kurzweil and his observations on the coming technological singularity.
