Today I went to my son’s high school to talk with the grad class about my career in Architecture. It was cool, it forced me to think about my profession from another perspective and articulate why I am doing this and what inspires me (among many other things)!
Afterwards I thought there were a few questions I could have answered a bit better -as I always think I could do a bit better, afterwards… 😉
One question especially returns in my mind that I didn’t answer fully, and I am going to answer it here in this post for 2 reasons:
1. I am hoping that some of those kids, and especially the girl that asked the question, sitting a bit to the left in the back, will check out my website tonight or in the next few days and see the 2nd half of the answer here. So if one of you kids happens to read this post, let your friends know!!
2. I realized that it would be a good bit of information to post as it isn’t mentioned anywhere else on my site!
The questions was: Do I draw my designs by hand or in CAD?
The answer that I gave her was: I draw everything in CAD now, but back in university I used to draw everything by hand (see my graduation project for example).
This answer was followed by some questions about where I learned CAD so the 2nd part of my answer got lost in the back of my mind, consequently popping out on my way back to the office.
The truth is: I design the concepts of my projects by hand, sketching with pencil and pen on paper and modeling with cardboard (recycled shoeboxes)! I find the design process is a lot more intuitive and creative this way and besides, I love it!
When  my clients have settled on a concept design, I develop the designa dn generate construction drawings in CAD.
For more information on te different stages of design, see services.
