James, I am in complete agreement with you. Everyone should decide for themselves which BIM application works best for their firm.
At the AIA Convention in 2005, I visited the booths of (in my opinion) the top four BIM application developers. After spending hours at their booths watching demos and having discussions, I narrowed the list to two: ArchiCAD and Revit. Following additional research confirming these two seemed best suited for us, our firm set up a team of four architects who then spent four months immersed in Revit, and then another four months immersed in ArchiCAD. We brought in developer-authorized trainers for both programs, developed a test project through all phases of a project, kept comparison spreadsheets of "soft" aspects such as ease-of-use as well as factual aspects like file import/export capabilities.
After 9 months, we chose ArchiCAD. It was a surprise decision to many, as most architects in our region were being told that "BIM=Revit" followed by: "and here is the cost to upgrade from your AutoCAD licenses..." We rocked with ArchiCAD for several years. "BIM-plementation" of ArchiCAD was successful.
But then our firm's practice began to change and we found ourselves partnering and sharing design roles with other architecture firms around the country as our expertise in our market grew beyond just our local region. As the majority of these partner firms were using Revit (often by default as mentioned above) our use of a different successful BIM platform not only surprised them, but presented challenges during some model exchanges, and further, precluded any possibility of both firms working "live" in the model. (ArchiCAD has had single-server-based live participation for several years, and we even offered other Revit firms ArchiCAD licenses but there were no takers.)
We eventually came to the conclusion that we needed to move (back) to Revit. (Like previous posters in this thread, we used, er, more accurately TRIED to use, Revit 1.x for over a year.) It was difficult to explain this move to staff as they struggled learning Revit, having full capability of producing excellent work in ArchiCAD. While we considered running both platforms for a little while, in the end it became the
right business decision for us to switch all projects over to Revit, even though most staff still preferred ArchiCAD after learning Revit.
You can squabble over comparisons of "pet pallets" and ribbons, and talk about which company has more market share in different parts of the planet, but in my opinion, in the end it really comes down to which tool best facilitates success for your individual practice. Try them out. Don't trust the chainsaw salesman.
Tom Peterson
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Thomas H. Peterson AIA, LEED AP
Principal
Mackey Mitchell Architects
Saint Louis MO
www.mackeymitchell.com -------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2013 10:11
From: James Vandezande
Subject: ArchiCAD vs Revit
Good posts here, but there's one problem that no one has yet to address - you shouldn't be making a major design/production tool decision based on what other people say. If you're a cabinet maker using hand saws and you query your friends about which power tool you should buy and they say a chainsaw would work best - would you go out and buy one?
Each software application for BIM has its pros and cons - it's up to you to install a trial, spend some time learning the application properly, and doing a sample project. In an ideal scenario, try the same process on the other application under consideration and compare your results. Archicad might have some neat feature that makes your work much more productive than Revit would. Revit might be a bit easier to learn...what's important to your needs?
I started with Revit back in 2001 and my former firm evaluated it against Archicad and Bentley. We went with Revit - not because it was the best all-around application, but because it met MOST of our needs and was easy enough to learn that we could have just about everyone on a project team learning it and producing models. That same firm thought that Digital Project (Gehry's version of CATIA) was the best all-around modeling tool; however, when they tried to implement it across the board, only a few people out of the entire NY office figured out how to use it.
Recently, I have been frustrated by an apparent lack of innovation from the Revit development team at Autodesk, but it is still the core tool we can use to design and document about 90% of our project systems. What happens to the other 10%? Sometimes we'll need to use an application like Rhino with Grasshopper to develop a custom facade solution and then import it into Revit.
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James Vandezande AIA
HOK, Inc.
New York NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-12-2013 21:21
From: Jared Banks
Subject: ArchiCAD vs Revit
FYI... for those interested in this topic of ArchiCAD vs Revit:
Scott Mackenzie is doing a side by side comparison on his blog:
Also here's a collection of thoughts and links on this subject:
http://www.shoegnome.com/tag/archicad-vs-revit/
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Jared Banks AIA
Saint Paul MN
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-08-2013 21:13
From: Eric Rawlings
Subject: ArchiCAD vs Revit
Over the years I have heard many stories from AutoCAD and Revit users that resemble a pizzeria owner in NY being shaken down by the mafia. Now I haven't looked at Revit recently, but from what I understand, you pretty much have to learn the software from the ground up and hardly get much efficiency from already knowing AutoCAD. Graphisoft treats you like a customer and I've never heard people describing their experience with the company in the same negative way I hear people describe AutoDesk's business practices. Why keep going back for the abuse? Why continue feeling threatened?
ArchiCAD is the original BIM program. Revit was created to be an ArchiCAD like program that later became an AutoDesk product. ArchiCAD will always be ahead of the technology curve as they have built their product on the same base using the same technology since the late 1980s. Sure you Revit users can cherry pick a feature or two that you really like better and I'll cherry pick 10. Don't be fooled, it's the MAC to the PC. Revit is the copy, Revit is less user friendly, Revit is less elegant.
When I was a consultant teaching others how to use ArchiCAD, I could get interns and old timers alike working efficiently very quickly. I have NEVER had a problem opening or exporting dwg files for consultants. You can still save out a Microstation file among others. When I first started using it in 1997 you could have a PC and a MAC operating in the same file at the same time. In 1997 we could hardly get our PCs and MACs talking to the same printer more or less each other. Did Revit even exist in '97 (that's a rhetorical question)? The program is huge internationally, especially in Europe. I know we like to think USA is #1 at everything, but just like many technologies (and Architecture in general) coming out of Europe, they are usually superior and have been ahead of us for at least a decade and then our stubborn country finally gets on board with much resistance from the corporations pulling the puppet strings. Mini-splits (HVAC) are just now getting popular here for residences, yet they've been in common use in Europe and Japan for well over a decade. Come on, you know exactly what I mean.
Quit believing the hype, quit taking the shake down, and open your mind to the real deal. It's easy to use, it's the original, and the company values your business, not expecting it. Oh yeah, the full blown program is about $1000 cheaper too!
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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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