Revit 2012

New Features in Revit 2012

Yesterday, Autodesk announced the new features for their 2012 roster of architectural software. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to watch the webcast, but there is ample chatter in the blogosphere this morning. To keep you up-to-date, here is a good reading list for Revit 2012: Autodesk Revit – David Light’s exhaustive overview of the Architectural enhancements […] Read more..

APA creates App – Get your wood products references on the iPhone

APA (The Engineered Wood Association) just released an iPhone/iPod Touch app, which gives easy access to its product reports. Another feature is a “click to call” button to reach APA’s tech support. Here’s the official announcement: The first APA App – featuring APA Products Reports®, is now available for iPhone®, iPad®, and iPod touch® mobile […] Read more..

Rendering in SketchUp – a Video Overview

Interior perspective by senorjerome, on Flickr (CC) I meant to create a concise visual comparison of all available rendering software for SketchUp for quite a while now. To keep things organized I only added one video per software as well as links to the manufacturer’s websites and the current (February 2011) published cost. All prices are […] Read more..

Dealing with winter in New England

Will this winter ever end? New England has so far surely seen an amazing accumulation of snow this season. Every few days, the Boston Globe reports that we have surpassed the annual average snowfall by yet again a few inches. Let’s see when we will finally see soil again. For now, we have yet another […] Read more..

SketchUp on Spoon

Spoon-fed CAD

Although the Spoon website has apparently been around now for a few months, I just recently discovered it and I must say I like the concept. The idea is for a web service (Spoon) to deliver software to your computer from the cloud and then run it in a protected environment without requiring to actually […] Read more..

Construction “drawings”

While browsing through construction-material supplier catalogs to get some data for my classes, I came across some hand-drawn instruction comics. These were safety-related sketches of goofy-looking construction workers illustrating mostly what not to do. I am sure these kinds of illustrations exist in other industries, too. And there’s nothing wrong with exaggerating visuals to make a point. […] Read more..

Wood Design Photo Series: Austria Passive House Whistler

On a recent visit to Whistler, BC (yep, the place where the 2010 Winter Olympics were held), I had the fortune to be given an impromptu tour of the Austria Passive House, a building constructed for the Olympics and used as “home base” for Austrian media during the events. This 2700 s.f., two-story building is […] Read more..