Technology Changes in the AEC Industry

Every few years the AEC industry makes a leap in how things are done. Since the time that I've been drawing house plans as a 10 year old to now, being an owner of a mid-size firm, I've witnessed many of these.

• Parallel Bars aka "p-bars" - Before this everyone used t-squares.
• Rapidograph Pens - Before these people were using adjustable width ink pens. When I first started drafting I tried my hand with these but the ink kept running underneath the t-square and triangles. Even with all of their hassle of having to be cleaned all the time the rapidograph pens were still a lot better than the old-fashioned ink pens. (I got my first rapidograph pen (a double zero) when I was about 12. At the time it cost around $25. I promised my parents that I would be able to use it for years and years. Little did I know how quickly the tips wore out, then I discovered "jewel tips"... ohh... they were sooo smoooth.)
• Mylar and Electric Erasers - About the same time of my first rapidograph pen I started to use mylar. I can still remember having to lick white plastic erasers in order to correct mistakes. The speed to erase these mistakes was greatly enhanced when I was given an electric eraser for Christmas. Still you had to lick the eraser before using it.
  
• Blueline Machines - aka "blueprint machines" - This was the change from the old white on blue paper to blue on white paper. These machines were now small enough that architectural firms of any size could own a small blueprint machine. This created an excruciating job for young interns like myself of being stuck in some out of the way closet to run print after print... just about to die from the ammonia fumes. It was a right of passage into the architectural profession though.
• CAD - When CAD first arrived on the scene it was... very expensive to say the least. Firms that had CAD required mainframe computers in special rooms and only had one or two because they were so expensive. Firms had CAD departments and only a few were trained on these machines. In order to get their investment back the staff had to work in shifts. In these days a firm would spend over 100k per "seat" as they were called. At this time the "D" really only stood for "drafting". Time was too expensive for an designing.
  
• Personal Computers - In the early 80's the personal computers became part of the firm. At first you found them only in the accounting department or at the project admin's desk and typically they were using WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. When the Apple Macintosh arrived in 1984 you saw an explosion of personal computer use among architects due to the graphic nature of the user interface and the ability to make documents look good.
  
• Fax machines - Previously things were hand delivered or sent via the post office. Now it was possible to send documents over the phone line. Fax machines at this time were extremely slow and you had to use electrostatic paper that curled, but it was a lot better than having to wait for the postman to deliver a letter.
• UPS and later FedEx - It took days to send documents. If you wanted something to get there fast you had to send things by bus or take it to the airport and put it on a plane. I remember many times where I had to run to the Greyhound station to take rolls of drawings to send to a contractor.
  
• CADD - As the price for the hardware dropped and CPU speed increased, the prevalence of CADD grew. The "DD" now stood for "design and drafting". Despite a drop in price from over 100k to around 20k per seat, firms were still hard pressed to spend a lot of money to put a CADD station at every persons desk.
• Networked Personal Computers - When we were able to start to share files and place commonly used documents on a server by networking personal computers this was a big help. We finally stopped having to use sneakernet with floppies and diskettes.
• Mobile Phones and Pagers - Originally you would find contractors who had phones in their trucks. When they received a call their horns would honk. During this same time the use of pagers was still very prevalent and if you needed to make an immediate call you would have to seek out a public pay phone.
• AutoCAD and Microstation - Soon there were two predominant companies making PC based CADD software. These were strictly 2D programs. There were a few software packages out there that were the fore-runners of today's BIM software, such as Arris, but for the most part everyone was using 2D software and this wouldn't start to change for many years.
• The Internet and eMail - The internet has been a huge help to the AEC industry as it has with all other industries. I don't think much needs to be said about this.
  
• 3D Modeling and Rendering Software - Originally it was a basic wire frame tool but eventually as Hollywood pushed the limits some of this software became available to architects. This software was seldom integrated within the CADD software.
• BIM Software (Building Information and Modeling) - For the last few years we're finally starting to see the realization of what architects have been dreaming about for years. The ability to design and build a virtual model that can also be used as a tool to create a set of construction documents. The most prevalent software today for this is Revit.
  
• Project Collaboration Software - For several years now we've started to see the emergence of collaboration software. The first attempts of these were similar to the first attempts at CAD. It required a company to have their own server connected directly to the internet over a high speed connection. Along with this it took a lot of IT administration to manage. Today we're starting to see the web-based project collaboration software at affordable prices. This software allows for announcements, contact lists, online document distribution, calendars, RFI logs, submittal logs, change order and pay application logs, and more. The one that I'm most encouraged by is called Tangentworks 550. (Other products that do similar things are Autodesk' Basecamp and Constructware, iSqFt, 37 Signals' Basecamp and WebOffice.)
  

Summary:

I feel a bit like I'm listening to my father tell me about the evolution of automobiles over his lifetime, but it's true to a degree. Over my lifetime I've seen a lot of advancements in the AEC industry with how things are produced. It's changes like these that have given me the desire to increase the productivity of architectural firms and the reason that my partners and I created Tangentworks.