Introducing BIM and Archicad

This book introduces Graphisoft® Archicad®, advanced software for architects and other designers, which follows a methodology that is known as Building Information Modeling (BIM). It is an approach to developing digital models for buildings or other constructions that forms the basis for all kinds of documents and reports that are typically created by architects, such as drawings, renderings, and schedules, among many others.

BIM is gaining worldwide popularity and is quickly becoming the best practice in construction projects of all sizes. It helps you to better manage information and all related graphical documents, while at the same time avoiding mistakes, inconsistencies, or inefficient workflows.

You will use the Archicad software as one of the main tools in your BIM toolkit, not only to model and draft but also to develop a design, help you understand the spatial layout and qualities of your concepts, and help you in collaboration with other project partners, such as your client, other designers or engineers, the contractor, and manufacturers. The models you develop will become one of the main sources of information for a project, and ensuring they can be created efficiently is essential to become productive in a project where BIM is applied.

While we don’t expect you to already have experience with BIM, it would be helpful if you have an overall understanding of the construction process and, possibly, some experience with making drawings using general CAD software, such as AutoCAD®.

The objective of using software such as Archicad is not simply to create 2D drawings but to really develop a model, with 3D geometry and embedded information, that allows drawings to still be extracted from it. This is also what we will cover in this book.