3 Essential Architecture Programs Every Student Needs to Learn
What programs should I learn as an architecture student?
What programs are architects currently using?
This is architecture software every student needs to learn for a successful future.
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Sketchup, rhino, autocad, revit, archicad, 3ds max, photoshop . . . the list goes on and on . . .
In this episode, I interview architect Sarah Lebner from Lighthouse Architecture & Science to find out what software she thinks is essential to learn as an architecture student.
I then take my knowledge as a student, including what I’ve researched about software and programs from other architects and students, to come up with 3 ESSENTIAL programs you NEED to learn as an architecture student.
These are programs I’ve found most useful in not just creating beautiful designs, but maximising efficiency in the way we work. To get more done, in less time.
3 Essential Architecture Programs Every Student Needs to Learn - Transcript
Kyle
What’s going on guys? I just wanted to quickly make a video, I was looking back at some footage with the interview with Sarah Lebner, the architect from Canberra in Australia. And she was mentioning something about what software architecture students should be practicing and what they should be learning. And so I want to dig into that video then I want to talk about and kind of break that down that way you have an architect’s take a view on what kind of software architecture students should be using. And then you’ve got an architecture shooting isn’t a third year of their take on it as well. So it should be super helpful. And it’s pretty quick this video so just stay tuned and watch it all. I get the question quite often, what software should should you learn because in unique, you know, work and up to this intense collection of drafting software. And so we tend to get lost I guess, when finding out which one is superior or which one we should niche down to talk about which software you think is prevalent in architecture now and maybe what software you use that lighthouse architecture?
Sarah
Yeah. So the official guidance is to check what firm are using in your area. I’ve heard that the sort of clusters of different programs being more popular in Melbourne compared to Sydney, for example. As I said, the two main popular ones for drafting are ArchiCAD and Revit. I’m biased because I use Revit. So I think you should use Revit. But then there’s also a students have so much to offer in this space. I mean, I only graduated seven years ago, and I already feel like a dinosaur in the office sometimes. So Photoshop or the Adobe Suite is really another staple. It’s going to be used by most offices, things like Reiner
anything, yeah, that firms are going to increasingly use that. You know, anyone older than you doesn’t know how to use you can be so valuable and who knows. If we’re about to head into a recession. I think learning some unique programs like that could be a really good way to give yourself an edge and remain really employable, and virtual reality is going to take off as well. So, yeah, jump on it.
Kyle
Yeah, you just finished what I was thinking in my head, I was just I add VR and AR because learning those things are gonna make you Yes, as you said, super valuable in the industry, and that’s how you get give yourself an edge. Okay, so what Sarah mentioned there was that you should be learning ArchiCAD or Revit. And there are two BIM software software’s. So that’s BIM as MBM building information modeling software. And the reason why these are so popular right now, and so much better than using AutoCAD or Illustrator for drafting lines is because what you do is you model up a building with these Building Information software, building information modeling software’s and then from modeling your entire building, what you can do is start bringing out plans, sections and just all of your construction drawings from this model and it does it all at once. It’s all integrated into one model to then rather than having to do a plan and a section and then drawing up new drawings every single time you want a drawing. And then if you make a mistake after change it and go back in and redo everything and have to do it across multiple drawings. Instead, you can scrap that and everything is just synced up together so that you work on one drawing. It’s working on every single other drawing and updates them synchronistically is that a word? I don’t know, but you get me. So that’s number one, just please learn some Revit or ArchiCAD, any BIM software, because that is what is popular right now amongst most of the firms out there. Now next, you did mention to learn Rhino, or any of these new programs. So Rhino has grasshopper and all this parametric modeling and all these kind of cool features and stuff. And I do think that these are definitely really really good resources to practice and learn. I’ve been looking a lot into Rhino and grasshopper lately and some of the things you can do with it. It’s just incredible and not just about the designs you can do. It’s more about efficiently optimizing and maximizing how much you can get out of your effort, while more And while doing construction drawings, while you might spend 30 minutes, creating some kind of drawing in AutoCAD, you can bring that into grasshopper, and with the flick of a switch using scripts, and you can systemize a lot of things to happen instantaneously through the use of coding, which is what grasshopper is all about. And so I think Rhino and grasshopper, they’re a bit complicated to get started with. And they’re not beginner entry level architecture tools. But the sooner you learn them, the more helpful you’re going to find them. And that’s something that Sarah mentioned as well that she’s been in the industry only for seven years. And she graduated seven years ago. And the fact is that she’s already feeling like she’s falling behind. And so by you giving yourself these new skills that can bring you into the industry with something new that the people working at don’t have, that’s going to be incredibly helpful, because what I believe is that if you’re trying to get a job, it’s all about how much value you can offer, the firm you’re applying at. If you find yourself in that situation where you can’t get a job, maybe you need to learn some new skills and learning these new skills that people that already are in the firms don’t have then that’s going to create some kind of value and leverage for yourself. And then lastly, she did mention VR, which I think is also really cool. I haven’t practiced too much with it, I’ve been using it a little bit. And it’s really quite cool. The fact that you can walk through a building without actually having it built is incredible. So definitely play around with some VR or AR, or augmented reality where you can bring up your phone and then have a look at something in real time. It’s incredible the things you can do with that, so definitely go check out those resources. So that’s Revit or lucky CAD, so any BIM software, have a play around with Rhino grasshopper or any of these parametric scripted modeling resources. And then finally have a play around with VR AR even if you just have putting your foot in the water if you know what I mean. Just have a play around with them and then see what you can do with them because they’re really really quite cool. And I hope you guys found that video helpful. They’re just some quick tips. I also wanted to mention that Sarah and I and another architect from Sydney or Melbourne I believe I should probably check that.
And another architect from Melbourne will be unemployed. I know of three doing an online QA for her new book launch 101 things I didn’t learn in architecture school. So there’s gonna be an awesome event that’s gonna happen on Sunday at 6pm. If you guys are around, then try and convert that time to your local timezone 6pm camera time to your time, you can just type it into Google, I tell we tell you what time it is. Hopefully it’s not in the middle of the morning for you because it’d be great if you could join us and just hang out also be answering live questions in the chat as well. We’ve got about 45 to 60 questions already written down asked by architecture students, and the theme of the event is really that you can ask anything you want, it’s, you can’t ask that. And the idea of that is that you’ve got a panel of members. And so it’s gonna be us, these two architects and myself an architecture student and you guys can ask questions anonymously. Otherwise, if you’re there in the live chat, you can just go ahead and ask us and we’ll answer it for you. I’ll be in the chat. That’d be pretty cool. But yeah, you can go these questions that have been asked. We’ve got all these questions that have been asked anonymously so we’ll be answering them on the day. And it’ll be cool just to hang out with you guys. So if you’re free, definitely come join us. There’ll be links my Instagram, I’m sure have it closer to that date. So that’s this Sunday at 6pm camera time. I’ll see you guys then. Thanks for reading.
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