Category: ArchiCAD

Cadimage Group – New Auckland Office

In October 1999, Cadimage Solutions moved from a home office to an actual office. This office was at 41 Taharoto Road, the place we’ve called home for 14 years.

When we first moved in the TelstraClear Building (now The Vodafone Building) was nearing completion, as the first building at Smales Farm.

A couple of years later the Tranz Rail Building was built (now the Air New Zealand Building.) Then came the Sovereign Building and Q4 – a retail and office complex.

Over the last 14 years it has been great to see Smales Farm develop and the place become a great office park with great facilities. When we first moved in to Taharoto Road it was the old Service Station pie that had to suffice for lunch, now at Smales Farm there are numerous eating options.

Fast forward to earlier this year and the ideal size office became available on Level 3 of the Air New Zealand Building and we decided it was time to upgrade and expand.

We engaged Peter Keys from Kay and Keys Architects to design the fit-out. Kay and Keys were one of the first companies I installed ArchiCAD in when I first started with Cadimage in 1996. Peter and Alastair were also the first people I trained in ArchiCAD.

Amongst other things the new office space gave us the opportunity to design a purpose made space for training  – up until now we had used a multi-purpose space.

A touch over 4 weeks ago after 5 months of design and fit-out we moved in. We are still putting on some finishing touches and we are still a couple of weeks away from having the whole team in the office at the same time but overall we couldn’t be happier.

The Rock – Wellington Airport

With the help of PictureTalk we recently produced a video for Graphisoft. The video talks about the design process for a new terminal at Wellington Airport dubbed The Rock

The Project – The Rock, Wellington Airport

Winner, Transportation category, Inside World Festival of Interiors 2011

Finalist, Serve & Facilitate category, The Great Indoors Award 2011

Winner, Commercial Architecture Award, NZIA Wellington Architecture Awards 2011

Winner, Gold Award and Purple Pin, Spatial Design category, BEST Awards 2011

Winner, Interior Fitout Award, NZ Wood Timber Design Awards 2011

Winner, RMB Commercial Project of the Year, Registered Master Builders Awards 2011

 

A challenging brief with a double ambition meant that the redevelopment of the Wellington International Airport Passenger Terminal, completed in 2010 in association with Warren and Mahoney Architects, required a unique and innovative design.

The first task was to meet a set of complex technical specifications and optimise the available pocket building site, heavily constrained by aircraft choreography. In conjunction with external apron works, the project involved the expansion of interior open lounge floor area, new retailing, linkages from the new passenger processing area and an increase to eight aerobridge-capable gates.

As the gateway to Wellington for international passengers, the brief also demanded that the building offer a memorable visitor experience through a unique, edgy aesthetic that embodied a strong sense of place.

The oscillating outline of the new building was derived from the curved indentations of aeroplane docks into the confined triangular site. The organic irregularity of this outline dovetailed with the concept of the building as a crusty, enigmatic rock embedded in the runway – a gesture to the land’s geological past, recalling its kinship with the craggy, sea-battered Wellington coast. A radical departure from contemporary airports worldwide, preoccupied with the imagery of lightness and flight, the Rock terminal instead evokes the anchoring qualities of the land that rises to meet planes as they touch down and the coast that recedes away from them as they depart. Its copper finish is a mirror for Wellington’s swift transitions from grey sky to gold sunlight, as well as providing unparalleled durability in a corrosive environment of sea air and aircraft fuel gases.

In contrast to the bland, mall-like interiors that typify most international airports, the interior of the Rock exudes warmth and resounds with personality. Honey-coloured macrocarpa ply softens theatrical strata of dark-stained panels fissured with light. Spaces unfold on varying levels and exploration is welcomed, with journeys through the interior gently modulated by a series of ramps. Travellers are able to enjoy interior areas that are engaging and restful, impressive and intimate.

Client: Wellington International Airport Ltd.

The Company – Studio Pacific Architecture

Studio Pacific undertake a large range of projects, from small individual furniture items to large projects involving entire new towns. The small scale work includes new houses, additions and alterations, and retail work. The larger schemes include large multi-unit residential and commercial buildings as well as masterplans and landscaping.

Studio Pacific was established in Wellington in 1992 by the three directors: Nicholas Barratt-Boyes, B. Arch, ANZIA, RIBA; Stephen McDougall, B.B.Sc, B.Arch, FNZIA; and Evzen Novak, B. Arch (Hons), ANZIA, RIBA. Prior to establishing the Studio, all three directors studied and/or worked together in New Zealand before working for a period in Europe: Evzen studied in Berlin and worked in Switzerland and London, while Nick and Stephen were based in London and worked on projects throughout the U.K. and Europe.

The collective international experience gained by the directors in Europe set the platform and influenced the direction of the practice. From early design competitions and small residential commissions Studio Pacific has evolved into an award-winning substantial and creative practice with diverse projects throughout New Zealand. Particular recognition has been given to the studio for working with the arts, urban regeneration, housing, masterplanning and contemporary workspace planning.

Marcellus Lilley – Associate, Lead Project Architect for The Rock

B.B.Sc, B.Arch, ARB (UK), ANZIA

Marcellus Lilley joined Studio Pacific in 2003 and has been an Associate since 2005. Marcellus has a Bachelor of Building Science and a Bachelor of Architecture from Victoria University of Wellington, and has completed post-graduate study at Westminster University, London en-route to becoming a registered architect in the United Kingdom. He is also a New Zealand registered architect.

Marcellus has broad experience in urban renewal, mixed-use and multi-unit residential projects during five years of working in London, and before that, education and residential projects in the Hawkes Bay. Since joining Studio Pacific, Marcellus has been lead Project Architect on the MOTAT Aviation Display Hall project, the Wellington International Airport Terminal Development Project (Stage 01 and Stage 02) in addition to various smaller commercial and civic projects and competition work such as the Royal Society of New Zealand Campus.

Marcellus also co-ordinates the Studio systems group (SPARK) that monitors and develops the Quality Management System utilised by the Studio.

He has travelled extensively and maintains a keen interest in design and the delivery of projects through the role of Project Architect.

Karl Frost – Senior Technician

Karl graduated with a Bachelor of Building Science degree with Honours from Victoria University in Wellington in 1990. He started in the building industry with Jasmax, working on the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand project in the Auckland office for 2 years and then on-site in Wellington for 2 more years. This was followed by a brief stint overseas before he returned to Wellington in 1999 and joined Studio Pacific Architecture. Since then he has worked on a wide range of urban and commercial projects.

Karl is one of Studio Pacific’s most experienced CAD users, skilled in both modelling and documentation. He has worked as a team member on a number of commercial projects as a CAD leader and technician. His experience is invaluable for coordinating CAD information between Studio Pacific and other consultants.

2011 – A brief look back

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

Where have I been? Undertaking a Company Merger!

Today I got an email pointing out that I didn’t post a single article in October or November!

The last date I posted was actually the 27th September when I talked about how impressed I was with Air New Zealand getting me (eventually) down to Christchurch.

The reason I mention this again is that what took place on the 27th September is largely responsible for my lack of posts in the last two months.

On 27th September 2011, Tracey and I (as directors of Cadimage Group) along with Andrew and Marion Ecker of Cadconsult signed an agreement that saw our businesses merge on 1st October 2011.

Andrew Ecker has essentially been part of the team since 1991 when we first started distributing ArchiCAD. Andrew operated as our South Island ArchiCAD reseller for 20 years. In 1999 Andrew established Cadconsult Limited as a great kiwi owner-operator business. Andrew has had enormous success with ArchiCAD in the South Island. Cadconsult was also the New Zealand distributor for Solid Edge – a mechanical design product from Siemens PLM.

As Cadimage Group has developed the board decided to approach Andrew about merging our businesses. We saw that as essentially a solo operator Andrew was having to deal with significant administration which was preventing him from doing what he loves best – interacting with customers and potential customers.

Over a four month period we discussed options with Andrew and initially signed a Heads of Agreement in mid-August working towards the official merger from 1st October 2011. The merger saw Cadimage Group acquire Cadconsult and in return Andrew received a shareholding in Cadimage Group.

Over the last two months I have put in considerable work merging our businesses which also included establishing a new business to continue the Solid Edge related operations – Cadconsult PLM.

While we have extensive systems and processes in our business, merging customer databases with over 20 years of history still takes time. Also getting systems in place helps provide a platform for us to build and grow Cadconsult PLM as a key part of the Cadimage Group has taken time, with yesterday seeing the third iteration of our website launched in 2 months! This coming week sees Cadconsult PLM’s first official events with the launch of Solid Edge ST4 in Christchurch and Auckland.

Two months in we are still excited about the opportunities the merger will give us and are looking forward to a strong 2012.

Along with the merger – though not directly as a result of it – we have also recently employed two more people taking our team to 17. It is great to be growing even after another challenging year. For an overview of the Cadimage Group you can refer to our website.

 

Buildmedia

In October 2003, Murray Pearson and I- as the then directors of Cadimage Solutions – divested our Architectural Visualisation business and along with Gareth Ross established Buildmedia Limited.

For the initial 15 months I was involved as a director until Cadimage Solutions sold it’s majority stake to Murray. At that time I became Managing Director of Cadimage and my focus was on both ArchiCAD and our Cadimage Tools. Ironically when I was first employed by Murray in 1997, it was to re-establish the visualisation part of Cadimage that had been in gradual decline as the popularity of ArchiCAD increased.

Cadimage, Buildmedia, Murray, Gareth and myself have remained in close contact since 2003 – we shared offices until 2007 – and as of a few days ago I am now once again a director of Buildmedia. My involvement has come at a time where Buildmedia is ready for a new phase of growth with Murray having sold his shareholding to Gareth, giving Gareth the opportunity to stamp his mark on the company.

Buildmedia do some amazing work across Architecture, Product and Visual Simulations and I am excited to be involved again.

Credits:

Images: 1, 5-7 St Heliers Development by Cook Sargisson & Pirie Architects

Images: 2-4 Matiatia Marina Visual simulations

Image 8: St Michel bathroom furniture

Image 9: Marley guttering

Image 10: Wiaroa Canal development

Image 11: St Michel bathroom furniture

Image 12: Nulook architectural detail

All images copyright Buildmedia 2011

ArchiCAD 15 – Broaden Your DESIGN Horizons

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 Serverâ„¢, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment, and the GRAPHISOFT EcoDesignerâ„¢, 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.

The Euro

“absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the dollar as reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency”

Alan Greenspan 2007

All my purchases of ArchiCAD and related products are transacted with GRAPHISOFT in Euros so I keep a constant eye on the ups and downs of the Euro.

As can be seen from the above quote the Euro was once seen to possibly be a stronger  currency than the Greenback in the longer term – how things have changed!

With the recent turmoil in Greece, many commentators are questioning how long the Euro will survive.

For those of you interested I found this article in the NZ Herald (originally published by the Independant in the UK) quite informative.

Where have I been?

With such a long time between posts I imagine many of you may think I have been travelling again – but following our epic 73 hours return from Europe I haven’t actually left the country!

Not surprisingly life has been a little hectic with balancing work, study and relaxing (not that much of that has happened!) So finding time to blog has taken a back seat.

Over the last 5 weeks a number of things have happened though so thought I should share a few highlights:

Board Meetings

We’ve had a couple of Board Meetings with our new director Lance Wiggs with another scheduled for later this week. Lance’s no BS approach is both refreshing and challenging. While it is early days the formalisation of Board Meetings has already provided a discipline that Tracey and I enjoy as we look to grow our business.

New Website

A couple of weeks ago we launched a new Website as the first step in a series of strategic branding steps. Over the last 9 months we have been working with Brian R Richards Limited to build our brand by following an approach similar to Better By Design. The new website consolidated two of our previous offerings in to a single platform on which we will build and deliver future solutions. Keep an eye on the website on the 9th June when we plan to launch our new brand.

ArchiCAD 14

GRAPHISOFT have announced the next version of ArchiCAD so our team is busy preparing for both the international and local release.

ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards 2009

There are just a few days left to vote for your favourite architecture of 2009 in the ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards.

It is great to see New Zealand’s very own Pacific Environments Yellow Treehouse in the finals along with a number of ArchiCAD finalists from around the globe.

Check out the finalists and place your vote: http://www.archdaily.com/49280/archdaily-building-of-the-year-awards-2009-the-finalists/