I have been planning on writing this post since the first day of 2012 and am only now getting round to it and we are almost 5% into the year! [Updated: I didn't complete this till the 19th January so we are now over 5% into the year!]

One year ago I was beginning my 15th year at Cadimage Group (formally Cadimage Solutions) and my 7th year as the Managing Director.

In general I spend more time thinking about the future than looking at the past, but I find it good as I plan for a New Year to review and reflect on the previous year.

Without going into a huge amount of detail as I look back on 2011 I would  say that like most years Cadimage Group has achieved a lot. A few highlights across our Group include:

GRAPHISOFT New Zealand

We started there year by reaffirming our commitment to Architectural Education in New Zealand by sponsoring the Victoria University FirstLight House. This was the first time a Southern Hemisphere team had been picked to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. As keen observers we followed the progress both in New Zealand in preparation and then in the US as they were competing and we were stoked to see them take out third place.

In mid-year we released ArchiCAD 15 throughout New Zealand. This was the first time I had visited Christchurch since the disastrous earthquakes and I was a little nervous. Overall I was impressed with the resilience being shown by our Christchurch based customers and there approach to simply getting on with the job at hand.

The end of the year saw the fourth year of the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards which saw 60 Architecture Students receive prize money totaling $60,000 and Software to the value of $30,000.

Cadimage

2011 started with us securing the distribution for Solibri Model Checking Software in New Zealand and Australia. Taking on a new product is a major undertaking and we were pleased to complete the year with a  handful of sales and a strong position for 2012.

In March we launched a couple of new websites which marked the completion of the Strategic Branding work we had done with Brian Richards and his team.

Mid-year in conjunction with the ArchiCAD 15 release we released the updates to all our Tools. This is the sixth successive version where we have launched our Tools on the same day as the ArchiCAD International release. June was a record month for our export sales in conjunction with the ArchiCAD 15 Upgrade but this was short-lived with July trumping June by a further 15% increase.

Later in the year we expanded our website to include additional ArchiCAD software from different suppliers and relaunched ArchiCAD Objects.

Overall we have continued to grow our international business during a tough world economic climate. While growth is not at the level we would hope for progress is being made!

Cadconsult & Cadconsult PLM

In October the biggest event of the year took place with the merger of Cadconsult into the Cadimage Group and the formation of Cadconsult PLM.

Andrew Ecker the founder of Cadconsult has been involved with ArchiCAD as our South Island Reseller for 20 years and has also been selling and supporting Solid Edge Mechanical Engineering software since 1997. We merged the South Island ArchiCAD business in to GRAPHISOFT New Zealand and created Cadconsult PLM to focus on the Sales, Service and Training of Solid Edge and a number of other Siemens PLM Velocity Products.

As with all mergers there have been challenges and teething issues but 3 months in the entire team is excited about this achievement and the platform it has created for 2012.

Cadimage Team

As a result of the merger and growth we were pleased to see our team expand by 3 full-time and 2 part-time people. The New Zealand economy has had a bumpy recovery and still has a long way to go but I do enjoy being able to grow and expand our team.

Personal

On the personal side there were a few achievements as well. In April I took [almost] a month off. The reasons behind this were two-fold. One, it was time to have a break and, Two, it was a chance for others within the company  to take the lead. While in hindsight the timing was not necessarily the best the team stepped up and as mentioned above we achieved a successful launch of ArchiCAD 15 and our Tools.

Running

In 2010 I ran 15 times for a total distance of 105km – the main catalyst was being stuck in Hungary as the Icelandic Volcano did it’s thing. As a result of this lack of exercise (and a couple of other factors) the pounds went on. 2011 started and I wasn’t overly impressed with my weight so I started running. For the first time in a long time I ran without a goal or an event in mind. Over the year I lost almost 10% of my weight and for the first time since I have been tracking it I ran every month of the year. As I was not training for an event I gave myself little goals. The one I am most proud of was the goal of running ten, 10km runs in May. Over the course of the month I managed to achieve 13 runs and took a total of 5 mins off my time.

By the end of the year I had clocked up 82 runs for a total of 753km.

Sports

2011 saw the Rugby World Cup come to town and I was finally able (after two previous attendances) to see the All Blacks lift the trophy (just.) Having watched France knock out the All Blacks at my two previous World Cups I was almost banned from attending the pool match where the All Blacks made up for Cardiff. In the end I managed to watch 11 of the 20 teams play live and ended up watching the French 3 times!

2011 closed with me attending the Boxing Day Cricket Test at the MCG. While India didn’t live up to their quality on paper the MCG test has proved to be the closest in the series so far. The MCG is an incredible ground and attending a test match with 70,000 people on the first day and a total of 190,000 over the 4 days was something quite unreal.

Travel

2011 saw me make two European trips. One for the Graphisoft International Partners conference in Berlin and later a trip through Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and the UK where I finished up attending the ArchiCAD Summer School held in Liverpool.

Overall I was away from home for 56 days which is a reasonably significant amount of time and in 2012 am looking to stay closer to home and allow other members of the team the opportunity to attend these events.

2012

As our business continues to change we continue to look forward and plan ahead. 2012 is shaping up to be challenging for us with potential European recessions on the back of the Euro issues and with ongoing quakes in Christchurch the rebuild is further delayed. However, we have a number of exciting initiatives planned and with a bigger team we are all excited about the year ahead.

Previous Posts:

2010 – A year in review

2009

Following an earlier post regarding the capturing of Christchurch Architecture the HitLabNZ has now released CityViewHR for Android powered smart phones.

CityViewAR is a mobile Augmented Reality application that allows people to see how the city was before the earthquakes and building demolitions. Using an Android mobile phone people can walk around the city and see life-sized virtual models of what the buildings looked like on site before they were demolished, and see pictures and written information.

Earlier in the year I visited Singapore. While visiting I explored Marina Bay Sands.

I was therefore very impressed when I read the article Would you like some chilli sause with your BIM? and saw the impressive Structural Models developed by Arup.

The structural models of the Marina Bay Sands project in Singapore created by Arup. (Courtesy and Copyright: Arup + MBS)

With the year coming to a close it was once again time for the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards.

During Tuesday and Wednesday the 12 finalists – 4 each from the architecture schools of Auckland University, Victoria University and Unitec – each presented their project for the three judges.

The finalists were:

UNITEC – Department of Architecture

Warren Nicholson

Erxin Shang

Tess Fenwick

Nick Adams

AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY – School of Architecture and Planning

Jessica Mentis

Raukura Turei

Min Tian

Yunwei Xu

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON – Faculty of Architecture and Design

Sophie Hamer

Te Ari Prendergast

Roger Wilson

Ashton Wright

I attended many of the presentations and was most impressed with not only the work on display but the depth of research and thinking behind the projects.

Wednesday evening saw a lecture from Dr Nigel Bertram followed by the official part of the evening. All 12 finalists were recognised before the winner and two highly commended awards were presented.

Winner

Roger Wilson “Transcendent Site: The Resurrection of Denniston”

Highly Commended

Min Tian “Adipaetopia: The Co-Evolution Between the Born and the Made”

Erxin Shang “A Pulpitumic School”

Being involved in New Zealands’ premier Student Design Awards for Architecture is a great privilege and once again I’d like to congratulate all those who made it through to the finals.

Below is a few photos from the top 3:

I am currently in Malmo visiting BIMobject and Graphisoft Sweden.

I was here briefly in 2008 and saw the Turning Torso by Calatrava but didn’t have time to get up close!

The tower is 190 metres high and has 54 stories. It is the tallest building in Sweden and when completed in 2005 it was the 2nd tallest residential building in Europe.

Santiago Calatrava is a spanish sculptor, architect and engineer and the building was based on a sculpture of Calatrava’s known as the Twisting Torso – a white marble piece based on the form of a twisting human being.

The building is constructed in nine segments of five-story pentagons that twist as it rises; the topmost segment is twisted ninety degrees clockwise with respect to the ground floor. Each floor consists of an irregular pentagonal shape rotating around the vertical core, which is supported by an exterior steel framework. The two bottom segments are intended as office space. Segments three to nine house 147 luxury apartments.

The cloud is receiving a huge amount of hype and many industries are latching on to the benefits and having huge success (my favorite, for example, being Xero)

Building Information Modelling (BIM) with it’s large file size, high end graphic requirements and team collaboration approach presents a number of hurdles in regard to adopting a cloud solution.

The topic for this post has been on my list for a long time now so I was quietly stoked to see that Viktor the CEO of GRAPHISOFT has saved me the time and written “Debunking the Myths About BIM in the Cloud”

For further reading you may also want to check out:

The Cloud: Hope or Hype

BIM and the Cloud

BIM and the Cloud, Part 2: The Economics of Private Cloud Computing

I’ve talked a little about Augmented Reality over the last couple of years and have seen many use cases, though many have seemed a little too gimmicky to me and not very practical.

Although this news is over a year old not I have only just come across it and I think Ikea have done a great job in showing a really practical use for AR and also have taken a step at revolutionising their product catalog.

Using their application you can actually place Ikea furniture in your house / office / room and see how it will look. The app uses your phones camera to show the room and places the required objects, which then can be photographed even though they don’t exist!

This is especially good for any New Zealander’s who want to take photos of their house with Ikea furniture – which is still not available in NZ!

Here is a video showcasing the IKEA iPhone application:

I was stoked to see tonight’s close up article about capturing as much of Christchurch before the demolition crews move in.

Jason Mill a Christchurch architect is currently capturing HD images of buildings throughout the Christchurch CBD and with the help of Google Sketch Up (I think) he is creating a virtual model of the city. From what I understand Jason has been working on this for a number of years not just since the earthquake and the concept is awesome.

Taking the work that Jason has done Mark Billinghurst from HitLabNZ provides the ability to walk down the virtual street and see what Christchurch was like before the quake.

I have posted about Mark before regarding his work with augmented reality and it was great to see how Mark is combining Jason’s work to allow the imagery to be delivered to a mobile phone that is location aware so you can see exactly what was previously on the empty site in front of you.

While it is great to see this virtual record being created it is also good to see its potential for communication during the rebuilding phase with the ability for proposed buildings to be ‘dropped’ into the site for the public to see and experience prior to the actual construction.

Beyond using 3d models for visual communication for the general public, the rebuilding of Christchurch also offers architects, engineers, planners and the council a unique opportunity to build an accurate BIM representation of the new built environment – more on that in a future post.

As a GRAPHISOFT Partner we hear about the next version well in advance but we are sworn to secrecy so I am stoked that today we can talk about the next version of ArchiCAD – Version 15. ArchiCAD 15 delivers some awesome features and I can’t wait to get it to my customers:

May 3, 2011

BUDAPEST, May 3, 2011 — GRAPHISOFT announced today ArchiCAD 15, the latest version of its premium design software for architects. ArchiCAD 15 enriches architectural forms available for designers to unleash their creative minds. The new version also expands the scope of the BIM workflow to include renovation & refurbishment projects.

“ArchiCAD 15 addresses architects in their native language with innovative approach to handling design spaces and forms,” said Miklos Szovenyi-Lux, Vice President of Product Management, GRAPHISOFT. “In addition to reinventing the 3D design space and providing architects with a wide array of new design tools, ArchiCAD 15 also addresses the increasing number of architects who earn their living from renovation and refurbishment projects,” he continued.

ENRICHED ARCHITECTURAL FORMS

The evolution of forms has always walked hand-in-hand with the evolution of structures. From the simplest barrel vaults to the most sophisticated rib vaults, the architect has always aspired to combine durability, utility and beauty (Vitruvius). These very principles can be seen in the finest examples of Modern architecture as well. ArchiCAD 15 expands the design capabilities of its BIM tools, including new Shell structures, to support the broadest spectrum of architectural shapes and forms found in both classical and modern architecture.

NEW DEFINITION OF DESIGN SPACE

The evolution of the design process has gone through at least as many revolutionary steps as the forms and structures themselves. During the course of the past few decades, architects have gradually left the “flat-lands” of 2D sketching for the exciting “high-lands” of designing in 3D virtual spaces. The increase in freedom brought about by the third dimension, however, adds a new degree of difficulty to orientation in space as well. ArchiCAD 15 introduces 3D guidelines and editing planes to revolutionize the 3D space definition, making the perspective view the natural, 3D environment for building design.

RENOVATION WORKFLOW SUPPORT

The advent of modern technology has significantly increased the life-cycle of a building. As a result, renovation and refurbishment projects are nearly equal to the volume of new buildings in most of the developed areas of the world. ArchiCAD 15 expands the design scope to renovation and refurbishment projects with native BIM design and documentation workflow support all the way through.

In addition to the impressive list of new and refined design tools and workflows, ArchiCAD 15 includes improvements to its IFC interface and OPEN collaboration workflow with engineers, full 64-bit support for the Mac OS, and improvements to its parametric object libraries as well.

ArchiCAD 15 will be released May 23, 2011. Shipment to customers will begin a few weeks after the official release. Following a tight release schedule, all 26 local versions are planned to reach the market by the end of Q3 2011.For more information about ArchiCAD 15 please visit: http://www.graphisoft.com/archicad/

For a live demonstration of ArchiCAD 15 please register for the coming “BIM and DESIGN” Webinar on June 7, 2011.

About GRAPHISOFT

GRAPHISOFT® ignited the BIM revolution with ArchiCAD®, the industry first BIM software for architects. GRAPHISOFT continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as the revolutionary GRAPHISOFT BIM Server™, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment, and the GRAPHISOFT EcoDesigner™, the world’s first fully integrated building energy modeling application. GRAPHISOFT’s innovative solutions have fundamentally changed the way architects around the world design and collaborate.

I am currently in Berlin for the annual GRAPHISOFT International Partners Conference but have managed to find a couple of days to explore Berlin – a city with an incredibly rich history that I could never do justice to explaining.

Instead I decided it is easiest to simply provide a selection of photos showing the old and the new architecture along with many of the ‘monuments’ that illustrate the history.