SOFTWARE ROADMAP SOFTWARE ROADMAP

01 Moodboard Phase

The first stage of any architectural project is to make a mood board or inspiration wall to draw from. Pinterest is a great resource for image inspiration, and Adobe InDesign can be great to assemble images on.

02 Site Analysis

Google Maps and Google Earth can be essential when doing an analysis of the site, especially if you are unable to visit the site in person. The measuring tool within Google Maps can help clear up any site dimension uncertainties!

03 Concept Design

There are a number of options for approaching Concept Design, Sketchup and Blender can be easy to use and fun for creating digital mass models for example.

AI tools such as Dall-E and Mid Journey can be more cutting edge ways of generating new concepts and ideas. Ultimately, sketching and hand modelling will always be king in concept design however!

04 2D CAD Drawings

At this stage in the process, many people choose to create 2D drawings of their designs, AutoCAD of course remains the obvious choice here, with Sketchup’s ‘Layout’ being a great alternative if you prefer to model in 3D first.

05 3d Bim

BIM or ‘Building Information Modelling’ has quickly taken over the industry, alternative to drawing up your designs in 2D, it may be best to work with Revit or Rhino, with the first being more industry standard, and the latter being the more creative and versatile of the two.

06 Rendering

Next up is the fun bit, time to take your half-baked floorplans and sections and turn them into photoreal images. We recommend Lumion for beginners, and Vray, Enscape, Twinmotion and Unreal Engine 5 for more advanced rendering.

07 Portfolio Process

After carefully crafting your concept models, technical drawings and final renders, now is the time to do all of the postproduction work, editing and curating in time for your final review. We recommend sticking to the Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign). Good luck.

Conclusion

Of course, it is important to remember that for all that softwares can aid in the design process, ultimately a building is not a fancy rendering or collage. And so, it is necessary to harness the many software’s as merely another tool in a means to completing a project, and to incorporate these tools alongside traditional sketching and modelling throughout the design process.

Patrick Donnelly