Every year I like to count the number of houses on the AIA Minnesota Homes by Architects tour that were designed in ArchiCAD. This year my back of the envelope calculation says 5 out of 16. That’s essentially 1/3. Not bad. Here are the projects that I’m pretty sure where designed in ArchiCAD: #5, #7, #11, #14, & #16. Also I’ll give half points to two others… one was designed by a firm that has since adopted ArchiCAD (yeah!), and another was designed by someone who is learning ArchiCAD, but still does his small projects by hand (no comment).

If you’re in Minnesota the weekend of September 22nd and 23rd, check out some awesome architect designed homes. This will be the first year I haven’t worked at one of the homes during the tour… so I’ll have the whole weekend to visit the houses. Which is great, although a little weird for me. I DID do some work on one of the projects though (#16), so I’ll give myself a quarter point (it was just a few days of helping a coworker during Crunchtime). Sadly, I don’t think these points I’m giving out right now are redeemable for anything. Whatever…

Go check out some awesome homes (and yes I’m including all the homes, not just the ones that were enhanced with the use of ArchiCAD). You can learn more and buy tickets for the AIA Minnesota Homes by Architects here.

In 2011, I believe 4 out of 12 homes were designed in ArchiCAD.  Not bad. In 2010 it was only 3 out of 13. Not as good. But hey, that’s progress, right? Furthermore, I’m not sure that any of the other homes this year (or in previous years) were designed using a different BIM software. Which is unfortunate. Residential designers really need to get with the picture and join the world of BIM. Hopefully the ArchiCAD percentage will be even higher in 2013 and 2014; signs already point to yes. And let’s all work towards getting the BIM percentage, regardless of software package, to the 100% mark. Not aiming for that goal is a sure route to obsolescence.

UPDATE September 4th, 2012:
Learn more about #16 and see some great images in this Star Tribune article. I’ve got to say, I remember looking at most of these views in the model and the project as built is spot on with what was designed.