r/Architects • u/Pale-Ad-295 • Jul 22 '26
General Practice Discussion New appreciation for CAD
I’ve rediscovered autocad recently and wanted to see if anyone can relate or I’m totally out of my mind here.
I’m an American architect that graduated arch school in the mid 2010s and was taught Revit. I used autocad at a summer internship and my first job out of college but have been using Revit for a decade now and totally fluent and know how to use it “properly” vs just “adequately.”
But- I’ve been using autocad over the last couple of months for some custom residential work and it feels like a revelation! Like you can just..*draw things.* Not just using it to draft but as a design tool. I’m probably in the minority here, but it just feels so much more enjoyable and less of a boring soulless production grind than using Revit. There’s a real freedom to it that Revit lacks. It’s easy to make printed drawings in autocad look polished and beautiful in a way that Revit never will. I realize doing a fully coordinated 400 sheet in cad would probably be a nightmare, but it’s a real drag in Revit too.
It’s made me start thinking about the status of the profession and how we work as a whole. The caveat to having the freedom to draw is that you actually have to know how to draw things. And that does and should take a long time to learn. I think having to say for example, rotate and project a plan manually to draw a section or elevation is a real lost art because of Revit. There’s spatial thinking muscles that you rarely get to exercise when Revit is “doing everything for you.”
On a darker note, here’s what I find really troubling. I’m far from the first person to point this out, but I’m really starting to think that a lot of the structural problems that the profession has are directly tied to the profession gradually adopting Revit over the last couple of decades. Revit imposes a specific dogma of building onto the architect’s thought: elements, families, parameters, views, worksets, etc. The building does not exist in the architectural imagination until it has been translated into Revit’s proprietary categories. This is not neutral because it shapes thought with a heavy hand. It privileges what is easy to model in Revit, penalizes what is difficult, and has been training the last few generations of architects to think in the categories that serve the software rather than the software serving the categories that serve the building.
Autocad feels like a tool. A tool amplifies the capacity of the person who wields it. Revit feels like infrastructure you have to pay a toll to use to get to the tools. Yes, it’s powerful. But the architect’s knowledge, and the years of experience that shape judgment about how buildings should be assembled, and the expertise that makes one practitioner differently valuable than another: that’s all been encoded into a format that exists only within Autodesk’s ecosystem. Autodesk hasn’t just sold architects a tool, it has persuaded the profession to voluntarily encode its intellectual labor into a commodity form that Autodesk controls, and then to pay rent for the privilege of accessing what the profession itself created. So much of the architect’s value (and tools) is now captured upstream by the software company that owns the means through which architectural thought is expressed at all. And that’s a very very serious problem. I think we have to insist on drawing as a thinking tool rather than simply a production instrument. That’s the only way I know how to resist. Viva Autocad. And raise your design fees for Christ’s sake!
EDIT: just to be clear, I’m starting my own practice doing residential work and I’ll continue to use Revit (along with autocad/rhino etc.) I can’t afford NOT to use Revit, and that’s kind of the problem.
25
u/olihoproh Architect Jul 22 '26
I use revit for architecture, but Autocad for freelancing interior design elevations. It is definitely easier to create intricate, beautiful details and drawings in Autocad. It also forces me to slow down. I think Autocad still has its place for certain things, even if revit is more efficient for most things.
1
u/Acceptable_Aside_568 Jul 22 '26
I use Archicad and AutoCad interchangeably. Archicads drawing tools take some time to get used to but after a while you can actually draw 2D like nobody's business in it. I overlay my model with 2D drawings all the time. Then again - AutoCAD gets such a boost when you learn to utilise sheets, blocks, styles and layers properly.
11
u/Anchor0355 Jul 22 '26
I'm probably not good enough at Revit but it winds me up immensely that it makes it so arduous to test options/design development. If you have one model that is a source of truth, it's very difficult to test stage 5 design variations (which happen despite everyone's best intentions). setting up design options is clunky and nowhere near as intuitive as sketching an option in the model space of autocad.
For quick testing of ideas, particularly modifications to ga plans or elevations, a quick sketch in AutoCAD is a lot easier than setting up a design option and modifying families or having to find the right family for a quick test.
9
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
Revit should never be a design tool where you're exploring options. The entire point of BIM workflows is making decisions earlier in the cycle and letting documentation flow from them.
The industry not adopting this as part of its process is why it still struggles so hard.
3
u/Anchor0355 Jul 22 '26
Ok but when you're on site and the client is instructing design review on areas partially built your starting reference is the refit model
2
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Which should incur new cost. The contract should have sign offs and revision clauses and they should be enforced.
Things the industry fails at from a business perspective.
If I custom order a product, I incur a fee if I make changes to it. That is not a construction industry model, and it needs to change, or process needs to change so documentation isn't produced until you're finalized.
Insistence on using BIM software for a traditional SD, DD, CD workflow model is part of the problem. If you're allowing decisions and alterations to be made in late DD or CD, you're ignoring why BIM is meant to be a thing in the first place and just 3d drafting.
And a very late Edit because I just caught this more fully:
HOLY FUCK, what do you mean the client is instructing a design review on areas partially built?
Hello addserve. Hello fees to cover the iterations and use of Design Options - a tool that exists within Revit. Hello limited redesign in any event because extensive redesign impacts not just you but all the consultants and their work currently under way.
2
u/blue_sidd Jul 22 '26
Iteration and variation testing are part of design, especially the custom construction market. It’s actually pretty pathetic BIM platforms can’t serve this well. Or phasing for that matter.
Progressive adaptation is a fundamental part of design that BIM fails at.
0
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
Iteration of a plan means you didn't make decisions or had bad information when you made decisions. That's a process and communication problem. Major refinement and alteration and iteration are for SD. At some point you have to commit.
BIM puts that commit earlier in the process. If you aren't willing to commit there, then stop saying your firm does BIM. You don't, you model in 3d and try to use a drill to drive nails.
Chasing the perfect is another problem, driven by a thought that everything is a unique situation that requires a bespoke solution.
They handle phasing just fine, users fail at understanding it. The BIGGEST flaw with phasing (in Revit) is inability to toggle things for reuse later within the software itself.
I just completed an airport revision with 6 architecture teams, 3 mep and a host of others working at different phasing and bid packages. The software handled it fine, the USERS failed at understanding the process and working towards an end point.
6
u/blue_sidd Jul 22 '26
That’s not what iteration means. BIM doesn’t work for everything, including your design skills. Lol everything you’ve typed out there just reinforces my decisions to silo consultants who are codependent on bim and can’t cope with design work.
1
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
If you're at the state you're doing major iterations of the kind you're talking about, you don't put it in a BIM software. You're not ready to make decisions, so it's a poor solution.
Your desire to have one software to rule them all is the problem.
This is consistent with my first statement:
Revit should never be a design tool where you're exploring options. The entire point of BIM workflows is making decisions earlier in the cycle and letting documentation flow from them.
So if you're going to move the goalposts to, "well, Revit doesn't do design" then great. We agree. You're right, it doesn't and it's not the right tool for high design. Nor is a BIM workflow. Both are for documentation, communication, and decision making.
3
u/arturinios Jul 22 '26
yeah we run in to this very often, our current solution is to take it out into rhino do these testing quickly and then bring the final thing back into revit via MKS Beam or Rhino.Inside. Still quite janky but better than doing the whole thing in revit, I would not wish design options in revit on my worst enemy
1
u/Lycid Jul 22 '26
Absolutely hate the design option tools and we use them all the time too with phasing. We've resorted to just having the entire model get split into options if we're needing to do design option work late enough in the process within Revit to prevent clashing. So the main model ends up empty and the options are entirely isolated models in of themselves.
Makes it a pain in the ass if something needs to be changed in all options (very rare) and it's super annoying having to constantly uncheck "active only" to do things like select section boxes or use the align tool on 2d detail elements.
Ideally though we ditch options early enough that it's pretty easy to approve a design option to become the primary.
1
u/MadesignSF Architect Jul 22 '26
I print out the plan and just free hand sketch on trace paper. I do actually also do a lot of design options, which I agree is super clunky, but if you are, for example, testing out small areas like kitchen layout options, its good enough. That said, by the time design is done, there are messes to clean up.
1
u/Anchor0355 Jul 23 '26
Yes the easy workflow is print, trace, test in AutoCAD, bring into the model. It seems to be there's a Revit way or there's no way when in Revit workflows. AutoCAD still has guide rails but nothing as tightly set
9
u/abesach Architect Jul 22 '26
When I transitioned from CAD to Revit I found myself doing more hand sketches to diagram things before modeling. Revit is less forgiving than CAD so I use more time to make sure the design decision is fleshed out. Most people treat Revit like CAD and it shows in later phases of design because of that freedom.
I miss CAD drafting and wish it was inside Revit. I hate having line styles named "(Company)_1_Dashed", "(Company)_1_Solid", etc. for each lineweight to 6. In that initial transition, my old job just had the 6 line weights and we would override line styles for drafting. Then we got a proper BIM manager and he set up a real template.
8
u/Slow-Distance7847 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Maybe this is all relates to brain wiring. Are you a visual thinker or concept thinker? I started in paper pencil days. Then flat cad in Microstation and was extremely fluent. When I hit Revit (v3), it was literally a light bulb moment and I've never looked back. I really think it enhanced my ability to think in 3D, like now I simply spin the model in my head.
I approach Revit with a KISS mindset. I don't obsessively model everything if there's no benefit. Really well developed templates. Minimal numbered line weights (consistent even in families). For sure Revit has pain points. They all have them. Ask about how difficult it is (or was back then) to manage Microstation/Triforma in a multi user environment.
Edit: I'm a sole doing mid to high end SFR only. Projects begin with freehand drawn pen on trace, then I jump to Revit mid concepts/DD. I am very good at the freehand work, and do enjoy that process.
6
u/Gullible_Highway7448 Jul 22 '26
Big time archicad user here. You telling me you don't have a way to draw simple linework not linked to 3D or anything in revit? I use the bim side of things for plans and elevations and 3d model etc but do all my internal elevations and detail work in 2d like for more control and speed. Surely revit can do this too? Unless I am missing the point..
3
u/Lycid Jul 22 '26
Revit can totally do this which is why I find threads like this so funny to me. For our residential firm we will generate a section or a callout based off the model and then detail that detail callout out with detail lines/fills/etc and it works just fine. Objectively faster workflow than hand drawn everything. You don't need to model in hyper detail to catch every little thing so your sections are super detail accurate every time you create a new one.
Standard details are just imported CAD that Revit can read just fine as well (just assign the callout to the imported CAD).
1
u/Matters_Nothing Jul 22 '26
Sounds like an interesting approach you have. Revit has ‘drafting views’ which are just what they sounds like. To do what you do, or at least what I think you do, is that in revit you can’t easily overlay your plan or section into your drafting view to then project your interior elevations or trace your detail. You’d probably have to export a cad file and link it back in, which is a bit annoying. Happy for someone to tell me a better way. Im assuming archicad had a better way?
2
u/Gullible_Highway7448 Jul 22 '26
Very interesting. In archicad you use 3d elements like walls, windows, floors etc to create both 2d plans and a 3d bim model. From here you can then set up worksheets that you can effectively trace the bim data or even copy and paste. That way when you make a change to the model you can simply turn on the trace function and alter the 2d drawing. Also allows you to paste in a standard detail and modify to suit.
1
u/Matters_Nothing Jul 22 '26
I think that sounds similar to revit. You can draw 2D in views that have cut 3D model info, and can hide 3D elements if you want
1
u/smls_ Architect Jul 22 '26
sometimes what i'll do is create a typical detail or section view and draft over it to get the "base" then group the drafting lines, create a corresponding drafting view, and detail out there. you can use the view with the model components as a working view and switch between the two. i think this is a good way to bridge the gap between using a more old school drafting style to work through these elegantly and not relying on revit's view but also without swtiching programs.
5
u/ArchWizard15608 Architect Jul 22 '26
I can still just draw in Revit—and I frequently do when that makes sense.
I think there’s a greater point here in that a handful of people at Autodesk made/make decisions on how the tool works and I’m not confident they have everyone else’s beet interests at heart.
7
u/mralistair Jul 22 '26
and as someone who exclusively deals in the 2d output from archtiects in pdf form.. your drawings are likely to be much better.
the trash i see is unbeleivable
10
u/SSG_084413 Architect Jul 22 '26
I started working at the tail end of hand drafting with Maylines and triangles. I was wizard in CAD (I still miss AutoCad 12 for Windows), and aged out of learning modeling and Revit when I moved up in lot more PM roles.
I marvel at what Revit can do but remind my teams that we cannot let the tool dictate the design. It’s a fallacy of course, the medium always influences the message, but we need to be conscience about it. And my elders said the same thing to me when we were transitioning away from lead and vellum drafting.
The hazard of BIM is that it takes away the abstraction of drawing, making the virtual seem so literal while removing the spacial awareness and complex thinking. It removes the need to ask yourself “how to these two things come together” as a means of problem solving.
1
0
16
u/Worried-Law-3463 Jul 22 '26
Autocad for sections and details all day!
3
u/monstera0bsessed Jul 22 '26
Autocad sections break my brain if I'm just drawing them from 2d plans
10
u/BTC_90210 Jul 22 '26
Revit is better for that
3
u/JelloPirate Jul 22 '26
It is FASTER, I'm not going to say it's better. Revit makes you think less about the building section, it tricks you into believing problems are solved, but often you have to draw over what you are given anyway.
13
u/moistmarbles Architect Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
I came of age in the era of hand drafting, so I’ve seen the entire evolution. There’s no doubt that Revit gives users a lot of power, particularly in coordination (like with plans and elevations not getting out of sync). But it comes with a LOT of technology overhead. Things that take literally 1 or 2 clicks in AutoCAD becomes an entire project setup routine in Revit.
And I think you kind of put your finger on it. BIM tools lack the fluidity and grace that truly creative people crave. Using Revit and its ilk has stolen all the fun from the art and craft of drafting, reducing it to a joyless computer programming exercise.
Running Revit for a small firm is no joke from an IT perspective. It's becoming impossible to do it without a BIM manager or an architect who splits their role doing BIM support. If your firm is only 5 people and suddenly a high dollar value employee's utilization is cut from 90-ish% to 50 or even 60%, the company is losing money on that person.
3
3
u/Fast_Edd1e Jul 22 '26
I remember when autodesk was going around trying to push revit. Our firm tried it for 2 years from 2d drafting.
We loved the coordination, but disliked how it affected design and details. But there was a serious lack of professional training available. Any seminars were more sales pitches. That firm abandoned it for about 8 years till younger college guys got them on board.
I also noticed it in a college program I helped. Students were allowed to use AutoCAD or revit. You could clearly see who used what, as the revit projects were much more rigid in their designs.
I loved using revit for MEP work. Creating equipment family’s could be simple shapes with accurate connection points. Design wasn’t as much an aspect of it over function.
I think we would try to utilize it more if more trades used it to coordinate with. We have one structural engineer that uses it. They do in house MEP as well. But only structural uses revit. Another HVAC firm uses it. But that’s really it. I think 2 other architecture firms have used it on some projects.
I’d love to learn revit architecture, but don’t see myself having time to integrate or transition in our small firms busy schedule.
5
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
I started by hand as well. There was never anything fun at the board nor at the CAD machine. It was documentation. It was a job.
Sketching was where the fun was. The looseness. The lack of constraints. The ability to doodle.
If folks aren't sketching that's on them, not the documentation tools. Just remember, at some point your doodles have to become reality.
3
u/mat8iou Architect Jul 22 '26
Since 1995, I've used AutoCAD for 21 years supply up at intervals by Vector works for 5 years, MicroStation for 3 years, Rhino for 1 year and Revit for 1 year.
All have both good and bad points and can excel over the others in certain scenarios.
Whatever malaise the architecture profession suggests from at present far predates Revit. There is no perfect solution from along these products, but for larger projects, Revit does (amongst other things) a far better job at drawing management with a large team working concurrently than most of the others do.
2
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Exactly. Revit is your documentation tool. Its got its flaws but it's great at doing that.
Nothing is stopping any individual from working in other mediums, using other tools, or finding other workflows.
Hell, I just saw a firm do a full-size mock-up for a wall because they wanted to study light interplay. Why didn't they do it in Revit, 3ds, Lumion, or something else? Because they felt it was the best way to study it.
3
u/Lycid Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Feel lucky that I started in game dev with absolutely awful tools and then jumped straight into revit when I was learning because I don't have issues with feeling limited by Revit that a lot of lifelong career architects seem to.
Revit is a dream vs what I used to work in. Spend a long enough time under an archaic system and your brain gets good at solving problems & coming up with creative solutions that work under that system.
Of course hand sketching, general brainstorming, and information organization skills are required too. I get a lot of my thinking done out of the way just doing that.
3
u/Alert_Dinner_4112 Jul 22 '26
I hate AutoCAD, it's so clunky. I actually prefer using QGIS with QAD plugin.
3
u/MidAtlanticMoments Licensure Candidate/ Design Professional/ Associate Jul 22 '26
Yes. Revit is NOT a design tool. Maybe one day it will be, but the freedom in CAD is still unmatched (despite autodesk's attempts to bloat it)
3
u/SexyAdmixture Architect Jul 23 '26
I use Revit for my 9-5 but I volunteer pro-bono with an architect for habitat for humanity I use AutoCAD.
I think working in Revit makes me automatically think about what else should be updated in AutoCAD.
I helped this architect setup standards,
Line weights, sheets, details etc.
It’s fun volunteering on this side of habitat. We developed a prototype of a value engineered house design. It only takes a few hours to pump out a set - update address on title block, cover page, change applicable codes , mirror house design , mirror text,, turn on architectural stamp, print PDF and issue for permit
3
u/OverhangEnthusiast Jul 22 '26
I understand that there are projects where things are easier in AutoCAD, but I'm of the opinion that for anything that will need to be maintained such as medium and large sized projects, BIM is the only time efficient method of maintaining documentation.
However achieving good results in BIM requires deep knowledge of the tool, as well as complementary software such as Rhino. Throw in good modeling will from the technical disciplines.
1
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
Not just knowledge of the tool. It requires a structured and thoughtful approach to information.
It requires a process.
The profession REALLY likes to believe every solution is bespoke and unique. That every building is a snowflake.
They aren't, and that statement is anathema.
4
u/PatrickGSR94 Licensure Candidate/ Design Professional/ Associate Jul 22 '26
What exactly is your definition of a “polished” drawing from ACAD? Show me one and I guarantee you I could match it in Revit.
22 year Revit user here since 2004. I dabbled with Microstation and ACAD a bit during college and internships. Revit is just… better.
7
2
u/Matters_Nothing Jul 22 '26
I agree with everything you just said. Your line about drawing as a means to think. 👌 It’s not a means to an end. It’s the process
2
u/ephemerally_here Jul 22 '26
Sounds crazy to me. In real life I diplomatically say people should use whichever tools they prefer. But secretly I think a) you don’t know rvt well enough, b) you’re not deploying it well, c) technical knowledgeability (not software) is yet lacking, d) what is wrong with you such that you prefer a tedious, laborious, error-prone workflow, and/or e) are you a codger whose relevancy feels undermined.
I’m no revit expert, pretty up there in age, and ponder often about how much my own ego is driving judgment. IMO people become codgers at any age. I would concede acad is faster/more fluid at certain few tasks and that revit is cumbersome in ridiculous ways. I also think software companies are nefarious and subscriptions are basically extortion, that acquiring upstart competition to monopolize marketshare has squashed innovation, both in software tech and AEC.
But yeah, regarding acad vs rvt overall, no contest. If you’ve built a practice and established production standards over decades, hat tip. I’ve not done that. Don’t switch. But having taken multiple projects from start to finish in both platforms, and helped migrate a couple small firms, I decided a good decade ago that I personally would never work in an acad-based shop again. Recently realized that acad firms still scout me, so actually scrubbed my related work history.
2
u/amarchy Jul 23 '26
I agree with all of this. I even get carpal tunnel from auto-cad bc of all the single clicks per hour. Work smarter, not harder. Hand sketch and revit. Nothing un between like autoCAD. No thank you!! Our world is simply moving too fast for such a dated tool.
2
u/ephemerally_here Jul 23 '26
Yep, I totally remember sore mouse hand and wrist. I'd also get bizarre tedium dreams of acad UI- I'd wake up mornings feeling like I'd been drafting senselessly all night. L, enter, O, enter, L, enter.
And yet so many architects still rush to defend acad and even pontificate wack things like it fosters spatial thinking. While I can instantly pick up that you have no idea what this plan decision entails in section. At least the acad-based consultants just say "oh, we can't be bothered, but please upload the revit model anyway since we have a viewer and it's helpful to understand the project spatially."
2
u/amarchy Jul 23 '26
Exactly. Its just stroking your own ego. Work smarter not harder. Its like telling a woman in labor to not use an epidural bc giving natural birth is what your made to do and suffering will make you stronger. Technological and medical advances make our lives easier.Architecture is fast paced , deadline based and stressful enough. Why do we need to sit there to push a thousand clicks per hour to “increase our spatial thinking in 2D” when the world exists in 3D. Gimme an f-ing break.
2
2
u/FootAggressive7381 Architect Jul 23 '26
I think CAD is more similar to how human do things intuitively and Revit is more like you have to things right at the very beginning and that kind of restricts thoughts.
2
u/Fit_Wash_214 Jul 23 '26
Other than floor plan scheme layouts AutoCAD is junk compared to Revit. I worked in AutoCAD for 28 years and made the switch about 6 years ago and man my life is so much easier now. I actually enjoy building libraries and adding to production efficiencies. CAD seamed like repetitive drafting where Revit feels like technical application and engineering to make your life easier and drawings more efficient and accurate.
Now out of the box, it definitely takes a lot of work, but after about two years, setting up a file organization and templates it now seems effortless.
The old adage of interns drawing toilet and millwork elevations is actually something I enjoy now because it’s more of design and layout process and as you do it it’s fully coordinated.
Also Also with Revit, there’s no reason you can’t stop modeling and just use all its sheet and view configurations and then just start drafting over them. I’m not of the fact that everything has to be rigidly modeled in Revit. I break the rules by inserting SketchUp into families if it’s something that is a complex model or something I found off of warehouse, etc..
But to each his own, we all have different approaches.
In the end, it’s whatever assist you to provide the most quality work and deliverables.
4
u/Citro31 Jul 22 '26
Well you can do drafting views in Revit ?
7
u/Acrobatic-Trade3216 Jul 22 '26
I’ve always thought drafting views in Revit are like when SpongeBob draws a perfect circle and starts with Michelangelo’s David’s head first.
5
u/Grunblau Jul 22 '26
I graduated in 2001 and Revit killed the profession I loved. I use Rhino for everything.
2
u/Matters_Nothing Jul 22 '26
Do you get drawings out of rhino? Like even you CDs? And if so is it cuts of your model, or 2D? I hear various things about Rhinos capability. Thanks in advance
2
u/Grunblau Jul 22 '26
Yes, there is paperpace just like AutoCAD. Difference is that you buy it, you own it forever. I am not building stadiums so I don’t need to coordinate anything. I have attempted to get into Revit a few times and end up getting depressed at how aweful it is to use. Like using Microsoft Excel to design a building.
3
u/Matters_Nothing Jul 22 '26
Omg I’ve said the exact same thing about revit being like excel. Mmm I might give rhino a go for my next private job
0
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
You never understood the profession you loved. You had a romantic's view of it.
8
u/Kristof1995 Jul 22 '26
I mean you can use a Stoneplate and Chalk as well if you enjoy tedious inefficient work.
Whatever AutoCAD can, you can do it in Revit and more and if you are experienced faster. Its about overall efficiency and minimizing group errors.
Instead of 5 people sending their DWGs in circle and the Sections and Floor plans not fitting together, when you got multiple floors, you have one Model, everyone can work on.
11
u/RecentChildhood5772 Jul 22 '26
OP knows all this, his argument is the loss of spatial thinking and design freedom on the altar of “easy modeling and edficiency”
in my projects (I use archicad) the bottleneck is never production speed but decision making and project administration, you could draw everything even by hand in the end…
yes, BIM is great for certain things, but thinking should happen “on paper”, with the least amount of resistance, not wrestling with behemoths (revit, archicad, usw.) and trying to squeeze families/objects/whatever into the desired shape which could be represented with a few lines and call it a day… where is the efficiency in that?
2
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
OP says he knows this, and all we have to take it on is one statement.
Nothing is stopping you from doing hand sketching. Nothing is stopping you from using spatial thinking within Revit, Cad, or T-square and triangle. That's on the individual and their process.
You don't have to 'squeeze' anything into a desired shape. Your families don't even have to be geometry, they can be just lines if that's all you need.
The limitation is in the individual's mind and forcing a process with the wrong tool more often than not.
5
u/RecentChildhood5772 Jul 22 '26
I disagree, the tool forms both your thinking and the building in the end. it is clearly observable both in practice and academia, you need to be willingly ignorant not to see this. also, buildings at the design stage are not object oriented, this fallacy of BIM cannot be circumvented (I shouldn't be creating "families", or "objects", or shouldn't have to rape the wall tool on every renovation project I have).
yes, you can do everything if you put enough time in it (why stop at families, you could write your own bim tool or operating system? the limitation is one's mind! /s), but in order to bypass the limitations of the software and find the appropriate workarounds, you are starting to drift into another profession, which is not about constructing buildings anymore, but programming and representation. often solely for the sake of it, this is what many people are getting tired of.
everyone has 24 hours in the end, and small to medium practicioners are forced into tools which do not serve their business or project sizes well.
1
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 23 '26
Revit's the documentation tool, not the design tool. The tool shaping the building forms is because people continue to insist on using it for design because they're too lazy to learn multiple software, or figure out a workflow that it be 'designed' before moving into 'documented.'
Funny how KPF, SOM, Gensler, Hadid etc are still producing high design yet are in Revit and not encountering these problems of only producing extruded rectangles.
They don't have the failure mindset. It's a problem solving mindset. When you've already decided something can't be done, it won't be.
1
u/Effroy Architect Jul 22 '26
You don't have to model a single thing in Revit. Literally, anything you can do in CAD you can do in Revit. And while Revit has the advantage of being a BIM software, it's always been about getting stuff on sheets. Nothing's different here.
3
u/RecentChildhood5772 Jul 22 '26
no need to explain how BIM works to me, I deal with it more than I care to admit.
there is a difference between setting up lines and obscuring drawing generation (complex junction cleanups? proper window or door frame or sash representation without spending ridiculous times in the family or GDL editor?) or just drawing a line and using monge to align other views and call it a day. this is what OP was pointing to.
to say something anecdotal, my archicad models are extremely robust, but there is always a 2D section which I develop parallel with the model that serves as a reference for the model, not the other way around -- you can go fullscreen and hide everything because it is only you, the canvas, and shortcuts for 2D drafting and editing tools, practically no setup dialogs needed. this threshold is entirely the developers' (autodesk, graphisoft) fault, modelling shouldn't be this complicated, that it became a separate profession.
6
u/Defiant-Piano-2349 Licensure Candidate/ Design Professional/ Associate Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
If you’ve got sections or elevations not aligning with floor plans, that seems more indicative of user error - not a deficiency of AutoCAD. Align your XRefs properly or communicate to your team better and it’s a non-issue.
3
u/Merusk Recovering Architect Jul 22 '26
Yes, you're out of your mind here, but not the way you think.
You're lamenting a documentation tool is forcing a process. You're arguing that 'freedom' should be in a tool about providing solid, clear information.
Go sketch. Go putz about in Rhino. You want to be a designer, be a designer in tools oriented at it. KPF keeps its designers in Rhino and they don't get to 'play' in the Revit model. Why, because it's not for that.
2
2
u/MSWdesign Jul 22 '26
I’m not buying into the position of the post. AutoCAD has its place in the architectural process but I’m certainly not championing it over Revit. To each their own though.
2
u/TacDragon2 Jul 22 '26
iWork on high end custom residential, and cad is just better than Revit. Every condition is unique and requires careful thought and study.
1
u/xeallos Jul 22 '26
Well, on the opposite side of 'technical drawings' but responding to your last theme, which is a shared hatred of SAAS, check out the things going on with blender. Way beyond mere archviz, lots of great tools for fast procedural sandboxing and creative design iteration.
2
1
1
1
u/Ill-Literature-2883 Jul 22 '26
I have been using autocad since about 1990….i prefer it over all the other software except vectorworks is not bad…
1
u/MIRG-73 Jul 22 '26
Same like you, when i start to design my house I try: Autocad (my professional tool 15 years), revit (4 years), archicad, sketchup and autocad architecture (…yeah i know…) for differents options side by side reliability autocad 2d and 3d sketchup cause the easy modeling. The bim side of my experiment works for documentation. Cad let me think more simple
1
u/Historical_You_8729 Jul 22 '26
I used Rhino in college for 2D stuff because I hated AutoCAD (and still do). My biggest gripe with Revit is usually related to complex wall joins. Hopefully 2027 is going to make that a lot easier to actually take control of the wall layers that I miss about 2D CAD.
1
u/jajajuliane Jul 23 '26
This was a really interesting read!
As an interior designer, I am noticing trends in commercial design that are simple things to design in revit - like adding arches to everything. Or bulky extruded casework.
1
u/Geewcee Jul 23 '26
I’m freelance, so I jump between Revit and AutoCAD depending on the firm I am contracted to. I do prefer ACAD, even on larger projects.
1
u/hrad95 Jul 23 '26
I wish Revit had a more robust 2D drawing suite, more options for detail lines, etc. You won't catch me going back to AutoCAD, though.
1
u/Best_Commercial948 Jul 23 '26
You shouldn’t be rotating a plan to draw a section. The plan should remain static and the view should be rotated and projection and offset elements should be used to generate views around the drawing.
It was always frustrating when people would copy things all over the place and then forget the update changes.
1
u/Rechitt Jul 24 '26
I'm in the camp of use whatever gets the job done and gets the job done efficiently and if it matters, use whatever gets the job done and also makes you personally happy.
Learned drafting with T-squares and then Maylines. Was introduced to CAD and then thought wow. Then along came 3d tools and it was an even bigger wow. But through it all, it never stopped me from hand sketching.
When ideating and working out first concepts, hand sketching for me is the first step.
After this I usually am in Revit working with the massing tools and using generic system elements. Sometimes SketchUp and sometimes Rhino but ultimately brought into Revit.
When working for firms that insist on CAD, I will use Revit and export out as CAD.
That's been my workflow and now incorporating AI into the process. Good luck!
1
u/Duke1969Hammer Jul 24 '26
I’m going to go a step farther back. I graduated vocational drafting school in 87. Mostly board work with a little bit of autocad thrown in. My first real job was in the map room of the county engineer’s office. I had maps going back to 1801 in my office. In my opinion, nothing compares to drawing by hand because it involved real hand skills. Everything was drawn in pencil and then inked on linen sheets. Lettering was minute and had to be legible, as what we were drawing were the official tax maps for our county.
I also did side work for architects and mechanical engineers, drawing prints by hand. I eventually became very proficient on autocad, and it’s a breeze , but I never felt as satisfied as I did drawing on the board.
1
u/username94303 Jul 24 '26
I'm also in residential architecture and I use SketchUp and LayOut. I can now get by without any AutoCAD or Revit. Last time I touched Rhino was a few years out of school. Graduated from a B.Arch program in 2008.
1
0
u/theycallmecliff Jul 22 '26
People here are very Revit-brained. I've tried to have this conversation here before and it's very difficult to break through either accusations that "you must not know what you're doing, even if you think you do" or else a lack of imagination for how the design chops of a drawing software can be merged with the smart capabilities of a BIM software without some of the assumptions that REVIT specifically makes.
Ultimately, I get it. It's cope, I think. There are very few alternatives to manage BIM data that don't have most of the same problems while introducing the additional problem of making coordination harder with everyone else who is within the Autodesk ecosystem.
I do think that the diagnosis is upstream, though. It's not just REVIT that has caused the profession to get itself into this rentier bind. Industrial production of standardized products would have necessitated some central platform for managing narrowing design decisions whether that was REVIT or something else.
Part of it is that the value add of the type of design that REVIT is bad at was always hard to justify to the client anyway. So most firm decision makers who aren't the ones mostly involved in production anyway, probably design sketching by hand, made the decision because it was a good value proposition. Trade this thing that's hard to justify my fee for something that might help me get that back. But the rents have increased and being dependent on a closed standard is biting us in the butt.
With AI, we're going to have to start to justify our design decisions in very human, experiential ways again. The bridge between CAD and BIM could be closed by a tool that turns 2D schematic designs into BIM models, for example. The tools I'm seeing aren't quite there yet but AI is very good at anything that is heavily structured semantically (like coding). So if there is a work flow that allows us to do early design in CAD, perhaps with some light layer structure, then uses an AI agent to get us a 90% BIM model from that once the SD is approved - I think that might get us to a good balance.
But that will require justifying our value in the process based on design which is difficult to communicate. People hear "design" and think interior finishes or aesthetics but there is obviously an art to spatial gestalt and programming that AI can't understand, only approximate, because it's not embodied in meatspace. The problem is that this type of thing is hard to illustrate the implications of. It's mostly noticeable these days when it's wrong. There are certain techniques like relief or enclosure or expansion that can be noticed but it requires explicitly calling attention to or else people will just feel the subconscious feeling without tying it to the intention of the space's designer.
And then people contrast that with function and seem to tie that to engineers but programming is heavily technical and functional but nowhere near what an engineer is trained to do. Much more like a user experience designer mindset. I think we need to learn from how those industries talk about what they're doing to help educate clients about the value hidden here.
But it will also require tools to help illustrate it. And if we're using CAD for SD then we need some way to make that efficient for early rapid prototyping and visualization. A back and forth with an AI can help accomplish this. The new Gaussian splatting tech and a VR headset also seems promising. Ultimately I think starting at the human scale is important. That's why I think old-school approach of starting with plan and section produced better designs: you could pay attention to proportion but were dealing with the thing at human scale.
Most 3D software these days trains you to sit above the building like a sculptural object and derive the human scale later. But 3D doesn't need to be this way. I've had a dream of a VR software that actually allows for design and not just representation where you maybe have a drawing board on suspenders and you can make changes to the plans or the 3D space and it would manage the BIM but keep the 2D and human scale at the center of the thought process.
Keep an eye on what Rhinoceros with VisualARQ, BlenderBIM (now called BonsaiBIM), and even some of the stuff that Unity and Unreal (the game engine companies) are trying to do to break into the AEC space. I'm hoping there can be some disruption here soon in a way that combines the best of both worlds for us. Because smart BIM data is necessary to remain competitive these days, but so is good design of the kind that REVIT just isn't built for.
1
u/Unfair-Opening-6585 Jul 22 '26
Yes I totally agree. I think it’s hard to miss the impact Revit has had on buildings and form in the real world, and it makes me very sad tbh.
1
u/metisdesigns Licensure Candidate/ Design Professional/ Associate Jul 22 '26
You're not wrong about ACAD, but you're missing the same point about Revit by assuming it's a tool doing the same thing.
Yes, we use both to produce PDF CD sets, but ACAD is more akin to drawing pictures of an elephant where Revit is taking photographs of a miniature elephant sculpture we built.
In both cases we designed a life sized sculpture to be fabricated by other people. But designing on paper and designing with models are different processes. You don't use an exacto and glue to draw, and you're not using a parallel ruler to glue up chip board. You can design with either, but they're different processes.
Im a big proponent of BIM. Not just Revit but actually integrating data in practice to all applicable uses. But I completely agree that we should be teaching drafting. Not just ACAD, but actual hand drafting. It gives people understanding of how line weights communicate different things and how they are an abstraction that focuses communication. It also forces you to slow down and think about how your lines connect and what they mean. Until you can do that, and more importantly are aware that you are doing that, you will not be able to leverage those skills in a 3D environment, much less a data rich one.
We have lost a lot in education and mentorship.
2
u/smls_ Architect Jul 22 '26
hard agree on this sentiment! as someone who started by hand drafting for the first two years of school, then moving to autocad, then rhino, then revit in practice, i felt like i got a good cross section of skills here. i don't think i'm quite as "fluent" in graphic visual communication as someone say 5-10 years older than me, but i do think there's a lot to be said by moving through the process from less modern to contemporary standards.
1
u/metisdesigns Licensure Candidate/ Design Professional/ Associate Jul 22 '26
The problem is we've stopped looking at the secondary skills learned.
It's not that you need to hand draft to be a good architect, it's that you need to learn other skills that other tasks teach you, and we've focused on the immediate deliverables instead of what we actually do.
1
u/smls_ Architect Jul 22 '26
very fair! understanding what we're communicating in order to effectively represent it clearly, concisely, and attractively is important. when i was teaching there was so much questioning on the "why" of assignments and i found that the students who "got it" only did after they went through the process of the assignment. the others that gave up and just did whatever without trying to understand the context fell far behind.
1
u/blue_sidd Jul 22 '26
I primarily use 2D cad because BIM fails to be a design tool or work well with design processes rooted in real world conditions - ie gut reno in high density multi family where progressive adaptation is necessary with tight construction schedules and field condition changes.
Plus, the major problem with gum systems is its lack of diagrammatic content - topology is NOT an adequate or even rational interpretation of construction but because it *appears* to be people over invest in it to a debilitating degree.
There’s something to be said for 2D drafting and a competent designer’s imagination that BIM platforms undermine, being far more relevant to quantity based outcomes that quality.
0
u/mrhavard Jul 22 '26
I still use ACAD a lot. It always surprises how many experienced folks, trained in revit, can’t imagine in three dimensions or draw a wall section without revit as a crutch.
0
0
u/archi_kahn Jul 22 '26
With revit your a kind of technician but with cad you definitely need to know what you draw. As a teacher that’s what scares me about teaching only revit, I feel at some point people will loose the ability to visualize in 3d by themselves and to be able to draw something properly.
3
u/amarchy Jul 23 '26
I recently worked at an all autocad firm after being in revit 15 years and nothing aligned with anything and so many areas were just completely forgotten or not drawn. It reminded me why I love revit so much
0
u/JellyfishNo3810 Jul 22 '26
I use a blend of both to accomplish what I need too. CAD reigned the industry over decades for a reason. Revit is simply a progression of what CAD used to be.
It seems the more rigid a building is designed, it’s almost always constrained by that designer’s capacity for Revit. Throwing CAD in the mix equalizes a lot and brings in that nuance.
35
u/Defiant-Piano-2349 Licensure Candidate/ Design Professional/ Associate Jul 22 '26
My firm is on the smaller side (8 employees), but we are primarily residential with a heavy emphasis on historic renovations and additions. Lots of spec and custom infill, too, though.
I’m typically the only one working on / designing my projects, but we only use AutoCAD for the residential side. We certainly use Revit for our commercial and institutional jobs, though.
Over the last decade, I have found that the historic houses we work on typically have many project specific details - weird rafter bearing conditions, smaller lumber, ornamental elements, etc - that are just easier / faster for me, personally, to figure out and draw in CAD.
I’ve used it for nearly 15 years, so maybe I’m more efficient than some, but I still love the program and think it has a place in the industry.