Pro-Revit

I've gotten a lot of my chest, but I still feel I have barely scratched the surface - I really lack the words to explain exactly how much I despise Revit, so for a change, I'm going to talk about things that I actually like about Revit (this should be a short one).

First we'll talk about it from the design aspect.

Looking at some of the designs that  people have done with it, especially when they export them out to other programs to flesh them out, complete with textures, lighting, etc. (or even before that in some cases) - I have to be somewhat impressed.  They still strike me as being an inefficient way of making what basically breaks down to being a rendering - but I do understand the excitement of seeing your design 'come to life' in the digital realm.

While I complain about all of the things that architects don't understand about my designs, they are more likely to have to deal with the client.  They like to dazzle the client, and 2D pieces of paper (while they are still what ends up being issued for construction) just don't do that.  Giving them a walkthrough of a fully rendered design blows their minds - and the fact that it has 'intelligence' and can be manipulated in real time gives it a serious edge over a 'dumb' rendering.

The passion that somebody like 'The Revit Kid' (although, seriously - he can still go fuck himself) shows for their design work is awesome.  Even a fairly basic design looks considerably more impressive when you can orbit it in 3D - even if it isn't necessarily an elaborate piece of work.  If someone is really enjoying the way that Revit allows them to design - then more power to them.

It varies from firm to firm, but some architects only ever get to do a tiny handful of actual 'architecture' projects (if any), while they spend the rest of their careers cranking out boxes to pay the bills.  The same goes for me when it comes to lighting design.  I might get to slap a few decorative fixtures on a project from time to time, but it is rare that I get to break out the really cool fixtures (and even rarer that they don't get 'value engineered' out of the project (another topic for another day).

I guess the main thing about Revit is that it has the potential to be an incredible design tool - if its users would simply hold Autodesks feet to the fire and force them to back up all of their talk with a real set of software instead of the half-ass bullshit that the've been pushing.