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It’s all in his head. At least that’s how residential architect Bob Abell explains his dilemma. His mind-set is to work intuitively to create a new design for his residential clients in the affluent suburbs along Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago. “I’m constantly pulling ideas out of the air,” says Abell, AIA, an associate with Geudtner and Melichar Architects in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Abell, like many other residential architects, says residential design requires special software tools that accommodate the wide variety of floor plans, roof lines, construction materials, and visual flourishes that distinguish homes from standard, boxy commercial or industrial buildings. The right software can also make the difference between success and failure for a small firm—especially important because a majority of residential architects are either solo practitioners or members of firms with 20 or fewer employees, according to the AIA’s 2000/2002 Firm Survey.

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Fortunately, residential architects no longer have to shoehorn engineering-geared applications to fit their needs, or stick with drawing by hand and miss out on the advantages of design automation. More choices are now available specifically for residential work, making it easier, more creative, and more economically viable to serve this niche than ever before.

Two camps

Residential design software falls into two general categories: programs that augment the popular AutoCAD drafting engine and those that spring from a different technological platform. Both groups share something in common: a strategy for embedding intelligent software components into the basic drafting tool so architects can quickly and accurately plug in dimensionally correct, prefabricated representations of windows, doors, and other residential elements rather than tediously drawing them by hand. In addition, the latest design applications can help architects quickly develop renderings and 3D models of their designs to help a client understand and commit to a proposal.

Using the residential CAD program SoftPlan, Joe Villeneuve, a Michigan architect, can draft a complete set of working plans in less than a day. The software also lets him create 3D renderings from plans.

Two leading products in the AutoCAD camp are Build and APDesign from Cadsoft Corporation. The programs wrap AutoCAD compatibility inside a set of software tools that automate many design functions, such as inserting windows and doors into wall units. APDesign also lets architects work out the flow of a design without getting bogged down in the details of representing everything with straight lines and geometric shapes. “My roofs are nuts,” says G. Michael Tucker, an architect with Sweetbriar Architects Atlanta in Alpharetta, Georgia. “I have to vary eave lines, vary pitches. APDesign allows me to work with surfaces, then accurately draw the roof, even if I want to introduce a custom section that’s 4 or 5 feet higher than the rest of the roof line.”

Tucker also gives APDesign high marks for its ability to create a model of the framing that will support the house. “The framing shows them each floor in an isometric view,” he says. That type of model can also eventually help construction crews visualize the architect’s intent. “It can save thousands of dollars by showing them what the finished project will look like. It helps architects stay out of the remodeling business,” Tucker quips.

APBuild user John Neufeld, founder of John Leslie Neufeld Architects in Fairfax, Virginia, specializes in designing large custom homes, up to 25,000 square feet, in the Washington, D.C., area. He begins his designs by depicting walls, which then become the basis for subsequent architectural details. “After I draw a wall, I tell the program what height and material I want for it. If I’m designing a brick veneer house, I then see that in three dimensions. At any point, I can take the model and turn it into a 3D view. All of this saves me a lot of work that I don’t have to do by hand.”

Nevertheless, there’s a trade-off when using sophisticated design software. Though the built-in tutorial is helpful, APBuild’s complexity means that designers may need as much as a full year of familiarity before they become “speedily functional” with the program, Neufeld says. Also, for aesthetic reasons, he still prefers to do some parts of the design by hand. “You want the front elevation of a house to feel nice and comfortable,” he explains. “It gives it more life when you draw it by hand. Computer drawings are too precise. They look dry and dead. Almost always, I do the fronts by hand.”

As some residential architects use AutoCAD as the benchmark to measure what alternative design packages are capable of, its parent company, Autodesk, is making a new push to court architects—most notably with the purchase of the parametric design program Revit. “We’re taught as architects never to draw anything twice, to avoid conflicts,” says Peter Bruckner, an architect with Designers CADD Company, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, AutoCAD reseller and service bureau for electronic renderings and walk-throughs.

“With Revit, you can see whatever you draw in a number of different coordinated views. It’s a tool that understands the designer’s intent.” Third-party developers for Revit are actively creating new components for elements like doors, windows, and lighting fixtures and making them available via the Web. Manufacturers, like window maker Pella, are also making available dimensionally correct software files of their product lines.