SHOEGNOME OPEN TEMPLATE V22

This is the sixth iteration of my Shoegnome Open Template. Or you could argue that it’s really the continuation of the fifth version. Shoegnome Open Template V22 or V21.3 for ARCHICAD 22-whatever you want to call it. In past years I’ve completely rebuilt my template or simply improved and enhanced what I had before. Not this year. This year I hardly made any changes between my ARCHICAD 21 and 22 template other than updating everything to be ARCHICAD 22 compliant. Sorry if that’s disappointing. I do plan on continuing to add and revise the template over the coming year, so maybe v22.1 or v22.2 will see some big changes. Who knows. More on that in a moment. Maybe for ARCHICAD 23 I’ll tear everything apart again. Perhaps it’ll be for ARCHICAD 24. It’ll happen again, I’m just not sure when. And here’s why:

I’m really happy with my template. It’s an efficient machine for making money. Throughout this post are some screenshots of the first model I built in ARCHICAD 22 using my template. The measure, existing conditions model, and file setup (Project Info, Project Location, Title Block, etc.) took me twenty hours. Twelve of those were on site over two days. I measure and model at the same time. I find that’s a winning combination-but that’s a post for another day. Twenty hours in and I have a really high quality model that’s ready for me to start design. Twenty hours in and I have a lot of ideas rumbling around my head because I was able to spend over half that time on site absorbing the existing conditions and learning the house.The modeling and documentation of this project, like the twenty or so other projects I’ve started in the past 18 months, is going to be easy because of my template. The template worked well in ARCHICAD 21 and at the moment I don’t see any places that need improvement to increase my efficiency. Now I’m not saying the template is perfect or that there aren’t parts I want to tear apart or greatly improve. I have lots of next steps planned, features to learn, and more Favorites to build. But all the changes I want to do don’t yet have a clear business case. And since I’m so swamped with work right now, I’m not interested in theoretical improvements at the moment (that kills me to write, but it’s true). I want to explore expressions, Grasshopper, and the new Curtain Wall tool. But none of that will make me more money or save me more time than it’ll take to understand and explore between now and January 1st, 2019. It’ll thus have to wait.

Not transforming my template has meant my much delayed transition from ARCHICAD 21 to 22 has been seamless. On Sunday I was working on a project in ARCHICAD 21. On Monday I was working on a project in ARCHICAD 22. It should be the same for you. If you are using my ARCHICAD 21 template, you’ll have zero downtime when you switch to my ARCHICAD 22 template.

What are you waiting for?

Go download the Shoegnome Open Template for ArchiCAD 22! Did I mention it’s free, if you want it to be? Because it is. Unless you’d rather send some support money my way. Because you can do that too by clicking on the Pay Pal link when you go to the official Shoegnome Open Template download page. If you aren’t using the current version of ARCHICAD, go here for older versions of my template. If you are using my template, I highly recommend you use my Work Environment as well. The two work together well and the Work Environment is designed to reinforce the best practices of the template. You can download my Work Environment here.

If you want all the latest Shoegnome Open Template news, sign up for the mailing list below. I’ll only send e-mails about the template:

Sign up for the mailling list!

Subscribe to my blog to read more about the tricky world of being an Architect in the 21st century. Follow Shoegnome on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. If you have questions about the Shoegnome Open Template or need older versions of the template (ARCHICAD 17 and newer), check out the FAQ.