This is really not one of my best works but I'm especially proud of this one.  It's an exterior perspective of an office building we were designing in the architectural firm where I'm working at.

If you're also an architect and have worked for an architectural firm for some time, you would understand that some projects can be slow-paced and with a very loose time-frame, while others require you to finish the work as fast as your mind can produce a thought.  Well this project is of the latter type.

Have you had an experience in using Autocad where in you've already done a lot of labeling and have added a lot of callouts and text tags in your plans and drawings when you realized that some of the repeating callouts and text tags that you have been putting in all over the drawings were all wrong?  And then you go to all the hassle of going back and forth through your drawings to look for all those wrong texts and correcting them one by one?  Well, it happened to me a few years back when I was labeling all the finishes and specifications on the plans and elevations of a house I was working on in Autocad.  I was almost done with the callouts when I realized my mistake, I had placed a wrong specification for a certain finish I  was planning to use on the house.  The worst part about that is that certain word was scattered and was repeated all over the drawings.  It took me a lot of my time just to go through the drawings again to look for the word and to correct them one by one.   After that experience, I knew that I had to find a faster way to do the corrections if it happens to me again.  It did happen to me again but fortunately I found out about the Find and Replace Dialog Box in Autocad.

This is a very intriguing segment on Discovery Channel's show "How Do They Do It?" I just saw this morning.  It showed how a German company made it possible to build a very decent home in just one week.

Prefabricated housing and the method of prefabrication in construction is not new to me but it always fascinates me every time I see how manufacturer's actually build the prefabricated parts and the actual process of constructing them.  The HUF HAUS company, based in Germany, is a design and construction company and one of the leaders in prefabricated wood construction in Europe.  They were shown in Discovery Channel's show "How Do They Do It?" which showed how they prepared the prefabricated parts and assembled them into one beautiful house.

Are you looking for a good color scheme or color matching guide for some of your design problems - architectural design, interior design, web design, page layout, etc.?  Here's a nice little tool I found on the net that I think every designer would like to have - A Color Scheming Tool.

If you're looking for new materials and finishes you would want to use on your next architectural project or interior design project,  this site may help you find what you are looking for.

Philconstruct is one of the largest convention and exhibition of Architectural and Engineering finishes, materials and equipments here in the Philippines.   This is where designers, architects, engineers, and other people interested in the field of architecture and engineering go to in search of new building finishes and material that they can use in their current and future projects.  This happens once a year and, this year, Philconstruct 2009 was held on November 12-15 in the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City.  The event also incorporated three other Design and Engineering Conventions, which are the HVAC/R Philippines 2009, Interior World 2009, and the Mining Asia 2009, which made Philconstruct 2009 bigger than the same event on previous years.

A friend of mine once asked me why one should hire an architect if one plans to build a new structure such as a residential building or a house for example.  And it got me thinking, what would be the logical and the best answer for that question.  If you think about it, anyone can design a building, a church or a dream house for that matter and it's just a matter of putting it on paper and having someone construct it for them.  But what most people don't know is that designing any structure, like a residential structure for example, is more than just the looks, the colors, the materials used and the quality of the line drawings on paper.  Professional Architects did not spend a couple of years, in my case five, in architecture school just to learn how to draw, color and generally design.  It's more than that and people should understand why architects are also called professionals in their own right.

Our company was trying to cut down on expenses and was looking for alternatives to the very much popular Autodesk Autocad.  The cost of one licensed full Autocad is very expensive that it's hard for our growing company to buy more of this software.  Even if you opt to use its lighter and cheaper version which is Autocad LT, the price is still expensive and you don't get the full set of commands and tools that the full Autocad has.  A friend of one of my officemates suggested a very interesting program as an alternative to Autocad and I want to share it with you.

As an architect, I get to use a lot of Architectural Softwares that help me produce the necessary drawings and outputs needed to coordinate work with other people in a particular construction project.  Below are the list of the architectural softwares that I usually use.

Our web site is sporting a new look and feel thanks to Movable Type and the Professional Template Set. The Professional Template Set makes it possible for just about anyone to get up and running with a new web site using Movable Type. It is literally as easy as just a few clicks. Just pick a new for your web site, select the Professional Template Set and publish. Then viola! a new web site. Thank you Movable Type!