Next week’s Business901 Podcast guest is Zachary Evans. He is an architect and partner at Kelty Tappy Design, Inc., a Fort Wayne architecture, planning, and urban design firm. A Ball State University graduate (Muncie, Indiana), Zach holds professional architectural registrations in Indiana and Ohio and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He is an active member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Fort Wayne Chapter, and currently serves on the City of Fort Wayne (Indiana) Downtown Design Review Committee.

In recent podcasts I have discussed the concepts of Prototyping, Service Design, Design Thinking and Business Modeling.  Looking for different perspectives, I felt the field of architecture should be introduced. Zach does a wonderful job in the podcast adding both a view of the architect but takes a step further in how “Designers” think.  This is an excerpt from the podcast.

Joe:  I have always been intrigued by the modeling concept in architecture. How do you start with prototyping and modeling? And can you take us through a smaller project, with some modeling characteristics, steps that you go through with the customer?

Zachary: Architects are trained to think visually and many times young adults get involved in architecture because of their visual thinking skill. I think a lot of people who aren’t in architecture can do that but there are a many people that cannot visualize a three dimensional space in their mind so modeling becomes extremely important. We do drawings in two dimensions and three dimensions. Typically, the two dimensional drawings are for the construction drawings that are given to a contractor for building purposes and the other type of modeling is done digitally is 3D modeling. There are really two different reasons to do modeling. The first is for design intent. These can be digital or physical models that we do early in the design stages, especially when we’re doing the conceptualizing and brainstorming.

We use cardboard or foam cord boards. Sometimes it’s as crude as hot glue guns and cardboard to create something that you can turn, flip upside down, and hand to a client that helps us get a sense of what that space might feel like if they were inside of it, if it were a full‑size structure.

Digital models we use to convey design intent works well. There’s simple programs that can be used such as Google SketchUp and more complex 3D modeling software that is out there that we use. The real purpose of those is to allow the design team to work and coordinate a conceptualize design and convey that information to a client.

The second big type of digital modeling is typically use a little bit later, after a design at least has been approved conceptually and moves on to one of the middle stages of design that we call design development and is BIM. BIM stands for Building Information Modeling and has become very prevalent lately and is really the software of the future and process of the future where all of the building systems are put into a single digital model.

The structure is modeled, the mechanical system including all the ductwork and air handlers are modeled, all the architectural elements are modeled, the doors and corridors. Also all the written information, product information, design intent statements, can be included in it. It’s a single file, single model that contains all the information for that project. It can even be used by contractors to work off of during bidding and construction.

Disclaimer: Zach did not design any of the buildings in the picture. I wonder if they started with hot glue guns and cardboard?

Related Information:
A Product Marketers perspective on Prototyping
Service Design Thinking Podcast with Marc Stickdorn
What’s new in Business Model Generation? Customer Value Canvas and more
Service Design through the Eyes of a Design Thinker