Today's blog post is a guest post from Samuel Macalister. Sam is a Senior Technical Sales Specialist, AEC/ENI in our Worldwide Field Operations (WWFO) Team. Our Worldwide Field Operations is our face of Autodesk to our customers. Through modern and efficient experiences (both direct and through partners), they guide our customers in the purchase, adoption, and renewal of their Autodesk subscriptions.
In addition to being a technical sales specialist, Sam is also the author of one of our sample files that ship with Revit. Here's is Sam's story behind the creation of that sample.
I joined the Autodesk Australia team in 2011 as a Technical Account Manager (TAM) after working in the UK for almost 10 years as an Architect for large international firms HOK and BDP. During my time as a practicing Architect, I was fortunate to experience the early stages of Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption with AutoCAD Architecture (formerly Architectural Desktop) and Revit on some large projects including the University and Cambridge MRC and the new Brighton 3Ts Hospital currently being assembled (an early Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) project) by Lang O'Rourke Construction.
Check out this new drone footage of the Brighton 3T construction site as its exciting to see what started as a sketch now being built!
In 2012 I then moved into the Technical Specialists team where we had a lot more focus on software and how the Building Design Suite range of software (now expanded to be the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction collection) could benefit our customers' workflows.
During 2013 I was able to connect with some of the Revit product team to propose a new dataset for customer demonstrations. The biggest challenge was trying to create a design that could be used for basic demonstrations and new customer learning. Being a passionate design architect, I wanted to create something that looked cool but could also be built (I've even had the design tested in our Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis software).
The original design (that was adjusted for simplicity for the Revit 2014 release) which is pictured above, was proposed to be two forms — one for living, one for sleeping with indoor/outdoor kitchen/dining area. The kitchen and dining area were to be enclosed by sliding doors (but were changed to a curtain wall) that would slide into and away from the building. This inspiration came from my time working as a Residential Architect at JASMAX in New Zealand. I've also been fascinated with heavy materials and how to float them, so the lighter timber cladding was used for the ground floor living area and concrete was chosen for the upper floor.
Other architects that inspired this design were Herzog and De Meuron's House in Leymen and numerous works from Fearon Hay architects who design some stunning houses in New Zealand and the US.
The Sample House has now been used for numerous workflows around the world with a number of Autodesk software products such as 3ds Max.
It's always rewarding to see what our customers do with the sample design and the building's site.
Check out this winter scene on the Autodesk Rendering Gallery.
Here are two images demonstrating the Revit 2014 Displacement feature, and framing with plumbing — A360 cloud rendered:
Thanks for allowing me to share the origins of the Revit Sample House.
If any readers are interested in other projects that I've designed and rendered, please check out my Behance portfolio.
Thanks, Sam.
Autodesk has always been an automation company. Today, more than ever, that means helping our customers automate their design and make processes. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., efficiency, performance, quality), with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential), and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, return on investment). Building information modeling with Revit provides the opportunity for better.
Sample file storytelling is alive in the lab.
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