Vectorworks: The Latest Architecture and News

If you were to make a list of requirements for your design software, an ability to be both efficient and accurate would certainly make an appearance. It may even make your top five. In order to cater to these demands, software developers are constantly striving to make their products more effective for their customers. In the case of Vectorworks, which was built to deliver absolute creative expression and maximum efficiency, this is no different. Below, we outline four main ways the software can be used by architects and designers.

Matt Woods takes pride in "designing for deconstruction," which involves creating spaces and buildings that can easily be broken down at the end of a project. This philosophy is influenced by the high turnover rate in the hospitality industry, where Woods frequently works. He considers factors such as materials and functional elements that can be easily dismantled, such as using screws instead of nails or glues. Woods also focuses on reusing materials from past projects and collaborating with recycling companies to minimize waste. 

When François Lévy was asked to design a country home on a substantial piece of land, he immediately faced an issue: locating the building in a spot which required as little re-grading as possible while being able to reap the benefits of solar energy. The most desirable location —given site access and a range of mature oaks— would have left the building sitting slightly out of grade. And, if he had chosen the most obvious building orientation (long and narrow with broad elevations facing north and south), part of it would jut out of the ground and some crucial trees would be lost.

Low Hammond Rowe is an architecture firm from Victoria, Canada who are discovering that switching to a new design software can provide them with amazing results. You’ll read about how the firm continues business operation during the switch as well as how they’re realizing undeniable efficiencies that save them time and money.

The noticeable shift from 2D CAD in landscape architecture is in part due to external pressures, such as the UK’s requirement for BIM level 2 framework on government-procured projects. Even where there’s no BIM mandate, there’s inherent pressure to deliver BIM files when working with consultants who’ve already matured their workflows with BIM.

“I’ve always been quite interested in keeping up with what’s happening on a technical front,” said Nick Lawrence, a practice director at A&Q Partnership in London. The architect, who studied engineering in undergraduate school, leads the building information modeling (BIM) effort at A&Q Partnership and says his studies greatly influenced his interest in information modeling.

His interest extends beyond personal. Relying on BIM framework has been crucial for A&Q Partnership, who work on large, multi-building commercial and residential projects.

Internationally recognized for their weeHouse® concept, Alchemy has been proving since 1992 that even the smallest of dwellings can have a huge impact. weeHouse®, a term that Alchemy trademarked in 2002, was conceived as a modular-friendly design system that emphasizes quality before quantity, and has been recognized by an ethos of “less is more.” The Minnesota-based firm, led by Geoffrey Warner FAIA, designs the structures to be modern and sleek with particular attention to using expressive local materials with environmental sensitivity.

The Squam Lake House in New Hampshire, although not technically a weeHouse, was required to strictly respect the floor area and volume of a dilapidated cabin 15’ from the shore. Fabricated mostly offsite by Bensonwood using 18” thick, pre-glazed wall panels and white oak timber framing, the panels were erected in only 4 days.

Eric Winter, AIA and architect at Alchemy, shared some valuable insights about the project’s design process. 

Architects, landscape architects, and planning professionals have been working with GIS data for many years to great success in Vectorworks’ BIM workflows. Much of this work has involved georeferenced Shapefiles (SHP), Drawing Interchange Formats (DXF), and image files (JGW, BPW, TFW, etc.). Though georeferencing makes sense as a solution for aligning GIS data in a BIM environment, users did not immediately expect that it would also be the solution to maintaining accurate positioning of site CAD and BIM files within the project. This article will describe how users are finding success by incorporating georeferencing in Vectorworks Landmark to better collaborate with the external and internal project participants.

Vectorworks Architect is well-known for its BIM capabilities, allowing firms around the world to maintain the integrity of their internal design and documentation strategies with an all-in-one solution. The ability to collaborate between firms and share files with ease lets users shift their focus to their designs and all but forget the stress of document sharing. This was the case for Idle Architecture, a Melbourne-based firm that got into Big BIM completely by accident.

In today’s world of digital architecture, one term appears more than all others: BIM. Building Information Modeling (BIM) concerns the appending and otherwise referencing of data in a digital model. Architects use BIM for a variety of reasons, but the common denominator of BIM use is having a single model which serves as a touchpoint for coordination between internal and external teams.

Flansburgh Architects, a Boston-based firm that specializes in educational architecture, implemented a Big BIM workflow for the design of a new school for the town of Holbrook, Massachusetts. Kent Kovacs, AIA, Vice President and principal-in-charge and Brian Hores, AIA, BIM Manager shared how this process benefited the project.

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The landscape architecture industry’s recent movement to standardize BIM workflows is a transition quite similar to its former move from hand drawings to CAD drafting. Now with BIM, landscape architects can work more closely with fellow architects, engineers, and other external collaborators on projects with structural and civil requirements. Adopting a new workflow to accommodate partners who use BIM regularly, however, isn't always a walk in the park.

Calling all student designers and recent graduates: Vectorworks, Inc. invites you to submit your best work to the 2019 Vectorworks Design Scholarship for a chance to win up to $10,000 USD, gain professional recognition, and propel yourself into a bright design career. Brush off and repurpose those old designs or create something entirely new.

Have you ever spent hours calibrating the nozzle of a 3D printer or preparing a print-ready file – only to find that the model has failed because of a missed zero-thickness wall? With this in mind, the Platonics Ark—a 3D printer currently being developed in Helsinki, Finland—has one simple goal: to remove all unnecessary set-up and technical processes by means of intelligent automation and, as a result, almost entirely eliminate the wasted time that architects and designers spend calibrating printers, or working up print-ready files.

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Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. in collaboration with MAXON Computer, DOSCH DESIGN, Arroway Textures®, and AMD FireProTM professional graphics recently held the 2013 “Your World, Reimagined” global design competition, in which professional and student designers were asked to tackle an old, dilapidated or run-down locale and redesign it for a new, improved use. Entries ranged in focus from adaptive reuse to landscape reclamation and object redesign, and Maryn Hekker, a freelance interior architect from Amsterdam, won the Best Overall Submission award for her redesign of “The Pier of Scheveningen.”

Hekker began studying interior architecture and spatial design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 2008, but temporarily left her studies to pursue traveling. In 2010, she worked as a junior designer at Horecawerf Amsterdam and continued her travels thereafter through Asia, New Zealand and Australia in 2011. Upon her return, she reenrolled at the Willem de Kooning Academy and received her bachelor of design degree in interior architecture and spatial design in 2013. Her final graduation project was also nominated for the Drempel and BNI prizes.

Where does Hekker find inspiration for her designs? “I get inspired by the world around me: shapes, buildings ... But I always use myself as a starting point: what do I want to see or feel here, what do I expect?” she says. “This helps to find out what others would require of a place.”

Entries are now being accepted for “Your World, Reimagined: A Global Design Competition.”

Presented by Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc., MAXON Computer, DOSCH DESIGN, Arroway Textures® and AMD FireProTM graphics, “Your World, Reimagined” asks professional and student designers to tackle an old, dilapidated, or run-down locale and redesign it for a new, improved use. Entries can range in focus from adaptive reuse to landscape reclamation or object redesign.

Winners will be selected by a panel of judges from around the world, including designer and sculptor Nicholas Dunand; digital artist Shinya Fujimura from 3D-KOBO architect François Lévy lighting and production designer Tyler Littman of Sholight, LLC architectural visualizer Alejandro Nogueira from DECC 3D Art; architect Peter Petz from German-Architects.com digital animator Marc Potocnik from renderbaron architectural visualizer Erik Recke from Datenland assistant professor Katherine Bambrick Ambroziak from the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee Knoxville; and project architects Maxime Czvek, Thomas Rigby and Tom Boogaerts from BOGDAN & VAN BROECK ARCHITECTS.

In addition to an overall award for Best Overall Design Concept, winners will be selected in the following categories: Best Computer Rendering, Best Animation, Best 3D Modeling and Best 2D Plan. More information, including prizes by categories after the break.