Practice, Practice, Practice – Part II

Continued… basically, I shared that – so that I could share this. I hope you can forgive the long-winded narrative explanation of the ideas.

Production Crunch

I think (and I might be wrong) but the elegantly rendered pretty pictures, may have gotten us into trouble as designers.

Yes, I know what I said, and I’m aware of the MAJOR upside to communicating ideas – just hear me out. This is more about managing expectations and delivery than taking advantage of tech advancement.

The story used to be (in my learn-as-you-go 3D VIZ renderings) that the client’s tepid response to a lac-luster image, was usually met by me muttering, “You know – it takes Pixar and Dreamworks like 3 years to make a movie…” (but that was 2001).

Managing (or not) Expectations

The ability to produce well-rendered images for presentation, definitely are a game-charger in the profession. The ability to express design in ways that a quick sketch could never convey has been revolutionary to the early adopters.

I think that the flip side of that coin is that it lends itself to the idea that it’s the result of a final design process – and not what its intended to be – materials and lighting rendered on an idea. Unless we as designers explain that its ‘proof of concept’ and the beginning of development and not the end.

The firm that I’m at now, sources all that from China and uses the redline process to develop the design… Fiscally, it might be a reasonable business practice – but doing so, it loses control of the process – and all we have at the end is the rendering… So from the client’s perspective – the design is completed. From the design side, we have a skeleton model and lack the means/methods to reproduce the picture quickly and turn that into bidable drawings.

I’m not sure what its like in other firms, or whether this is becoming standard practice… Typically in my work history – I’ve been the guy doing the design, modeling and the rendering.

Unless you render loose (which no one appreciates), in-house (if you have the tools and knowledge), and with geometry you’ve generated – this creates a massive time crunch behind the curtain.

Suddenly you’ve designed yourself into a corner. The client now has the impression that you’ve created all this information…

Now what do you do? Well – deadlines are deadlines – so its time to shut up and draw.

The Idea…

Now part of the upside of going digital, like I said, is the ability to edit without starting fresh (previous post). To that end – I’ve got a particular set of how I produce documents that both drives the design, and gets you all the geometry and modeling needed for the pretty pictures.

When I stand up from my workstation and lurk on the monitors facing my direction every day, all I see across the office is SketchUp. I have the same reaction every time…

I’ll couch that by saying this: Personally – I have nothing against it, and its a reasonable modeling tool for generating ideas quickly… (wait for it…)

BUT 

It’s not a production tool (sorry Trimble empire), and unless the person at the helm is a 23rd level SketchUp modeling ninja, what you’re getting out of it is a pretty picture (thank you Chaos Group) , and modeling data that isn’t 100% transferable to the software you’re using for production. There’s a severe break in the deliverables, because what you’ve just spent 40+ hours producing – is useless to the next guy in line who’s now charged with redoing that work. If you’re a Project Manager, or higher up on the food chain – what this means is that you’ve dumped a week or two of project fee into a pile a set it on fire.

This results in a similar design crunch.

The resolution to this? Learn to model on a platform that you’re using for production. Generate the geometry, explore rendering plugins, and try to keep everything in the same language. This will close the loop. Render what you produce, albeit in-house or outsourced.

For me, that’s meant modeling in AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architetural Desktop, and for the last 10 years – Revit.

It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools.

I’m not sure who first uttered that idiom, but the voices that I hear in my head when that pearl comes up are my father and grandfather. To that end, back in highschool (AutoCAD, DOS-Based) I caught the bug for computer aided drafting and 3D modeling. That’s evolved to other platforms and now into plug-ins and visual programming (Dynamo/Grasshopper).

Ironically – I learned these tools to be a better designer, to expand the creative toolbox, to get to and thru production quicker, and to spend more time designing… The trap here is that learning these tools has also become an anchor, and any large-scale firm may expect continuous production in lieu of leadership and design solutions.

Design the Process

Part of my particular practice methods involve having a foot in 2 realms. The project in front of me, and the bigger picture. To combat this particular ‘shut up and draw’ production mindset, and to create a delivery system for project types – I’ve been designing function and tools.

When everyone else goes running to the shared Office Revit Manager – I’m building a library of reusable tools, components, detail items, furniture, lighting, etc.

To this end, I’m more that willing to provide the knowledge so that you can do it too.

Imagine if you will, the ability to send a project out for budget pricing at the end of Schematic Design, without a 4 page list of allowances and alternates from the contractor…

That level of deliverable is there – but you have to invest in the tools. Revit is like any other system, garbage in – garbage out. If you treat it as any other tool in the arsenal, and work in a firm that isn’t playing catch-up with the earlier adopters – you likely already have some system in place.

If you don’t – what happens in here just might be a path to the solutions that you’re looking for… or maybe you’re all sitting on your own private stashes of tools, and I’m just too swamped to keep up with all the feeds… either way – there should be something for everyone here.

Thanks for following all that. Drop a comment or contact me if its clear as mud… either way – please stay tuned. Better content is on the horizon, and I’ll probably come back to the original posts and add images as soon as I grab the Nikon.

Thanks,

John.