Design Tools

As long-time users of Archicad and Artlantis, this house, too, was designed using both applications. According to Curt, the most important feature in Archicad is “that it is the best program for those architects like us, who are not technophiles and want to concentrate on design instead of the software interface.” The small team of three at Modern House Architects must be proficient in a variety of areas necessary to win, design, and see to completion their commissioned buildings. Archicad allows the team to model many schematic ideas quickly, and generate the associated planning documents required for project submittals nearly simultaneously. “We highly recommend modeling to completeness and maintaining a live model through the entirety of your project, which will save you a lot of time in the drawing process,” Curt stressed.

As with Archicad, working with Artlantis is easy for someone with limited software skills and allows Curt’s firm to produce photorealistic renderings that enthrall their clients, and demonstrate with completeness the design intent and finish quality of what they can expect in the built project. “We routinely will generate our renderings from set-up with objects and textures to final renderings in a matter of hours instead of days,” Curt said. In addition to client presentations, Curt uses Artlantis to effectively communicate with city planning and other project approval departments. Using Artlantis renderings together with their submittal drawings offers a much clearer understanding of the proposed design. This results in smoother approvals and, at times, without the necessity of finish materials submittals, saving time and money.