Achieve ARCHICAD Mastery with the Best Practices 2020 Course

After seeing my current Best Practices Update webinar sharing 10 Cool Tutorials, California architect Bob Schwenke, a 30 year veteran (he started the same year that I did) wrote to me: "What you showed today showed me so many things within the program that I have ignored which will reduce the amount of time it takes to produce my plans."

New Zealand architectural designer Steve Masey sent me a note: "I just wanted to say thank you for the effort you’ve put into the webinar today. I’ve been using Archicad for the last 12 years, and was still able to make 3 pages of notes of things to apply in Archicad."

Ross Cahill-O'Brien of Dublin Ireland wrote that he and his colleague were "mad keen to get all the tricks.."

These are comments following my two hour webinar.

Imagine how much there is to learn in my full ARCHICAD Best Practices 2020 course - covering virtually all aspects of using ARCHICAD. I have started the process of building out this entirely new set of fully up to date lessons. 

If you use ARCHICAD to get your work done, then you know how important it is to work efficiently.

When you're not sure how to do things, it takes longer. You may have to rework things more than once to get them to look right. You can even go around in circles for some things just because you're missing some small step or setting.

When work piles up and you have deadlines, it can be a high stress time trying to get work out the door.

• Have you ever felt like you wanted to throw your computer out the window?
• Or like you wanted to go back to paper and pencil just because you can't get it to do what you need?

It doesn't have to be that way.

Working with ARCHICAD can be a highly enjoyable, profitable process.

One that is continually stimulating and even exciting, as you design and produce sets of drawings faster than ever before. 

One in which you're continually learning and mastering new things, optimizing your workflow - so you can focus on the things that made you choose to be an architect or work in the building design field. Your unique skills, unencumbered by the limitations of your ARCHICAD abilities, creating and delivering high quality materials.

A life-long learner who's mastered ARCHICAD Recently I was talking with Ken Andrews, a Georgia architect who as a relatively new user went through the Best Practices Course when it launched in 2011, and adopted MasterTemplate shortly afterwards. Ken said that he is very grateful to me since he enjoys his work more than ever these days, and produces his projects much more quickly using what he's learned and incorporated from my teaching. On three recent jobs, he completed retail store designs with permit sets of drawings in 3 or 4 days each that used to take him 2 or 3 weeks. That's over 3 times faster! He also told me about a custom home that he just finished designing; he delivered the final drawings in a fraction of the time, and got them through the permit process in a single day. He's more profitable, and the clients keep coming back for more since the quality of his deliverables stand out compared to other architects. At 69 years old Ken is still learning. In fact he often sits in on my ARCHICAD Coaching Program calls since he keeps discovering time-saving tricks as I answer questions and demonstrate best practices working methods.

Columns were introduced in version 5 along with curved edges for slabs. Believe it or not, we used to approximate a curve with a series of short segments.

Teamwork was breakthrough new technology in 5.1, 3D navigation in version 6, Publisher in version 7, OpenGL for easy 3D navigation in version 8, Lightworks rendering and rich text formatting in version 9.

(I’m leaving out countless other improvements and a few intermediate versions along the way.)

Do you recall ArchiCAD 10? It was revolutionary, as Plotmaker (a separate program for plotting and arranging drawings on layout sheets) was integrated into ArchiCAD, becoming the Layout Book in the Navigator. Solid Element Operations and Complex Profiles made this version truly stunning.

Virtual Trace was the big innovation in ArchiCAD 11, 64 bit multi-processing in 12, and the BIM Server arrived around version 13 or 14 (I’ve started to lose track). Renovation tags and filters simplified remodel projects dramatically in version 15. Multi-plane roofs appeared in 15, Morphs and Shells in 16.

The introduction of Building Materials in ArchiCAD 17 changed the game dramatically. I rebuilt MasterTemplate from scratch at that time to make sure that it was fully in sync with Graphisoft’s new project structure.

In recent years new options have dramatically changed the best ways to place and manage labels, annotation and schedules.

New methods for visualizing your model have been introduced in the form of Cinerender, BIMx and Graphic Overrides.

New integrated system-based tools for stairs, railings and curtain walls are much more flexible - allowing you to model things that were tedious or impractical before - but at a cost of greater complexity and a steeper learning curve.

Sharing models with consultants and importing objects from manufacturers are both much easier using the latest IFC translators along with add-ons to directly import Revit files.

This year, formula-based properties open up dramatic new possibilities for quantity take-offs and cost estimation, and offset modifiers make complex profiles more flexible.

I’m excited to announce the launch of ARCHICAD Best Practices 2020, my new comprehensive training resource. The bulk of the lessons will be produced as a series of live sessions twice a week through all of 2019. This mammoth course will be finished by early 2020, so I’m naming it “2020”. I like this name since it reminds me of the rating we give for perfect eyesight here in the U.S.: 20/20 vision.

I’m aiming to make this new course THE CLASSIC ARCHICAD REFERENCE for the 2020s.
(Wow - the 2020s - are we really living in the future already?)

In addition to the twice a week broadcast lessons (which will be recorded and posted for permanent reference in the member area) I’ll run coaching calls on a weekly basis this year, to make it easier to integrate the new knowledge into your actual projects.

Membership in the ARCHICAD Coaching Program is included with your purchase, which makes this a TOTAL bargain.

Now I must admit that this venture is ambitious, and I don’t expect that all members will attend each session. In fact, I’m sure I personally will be the only one who is there every time...

Masters of ARCHICAD 2018
Complete Bundle - 10 Courses and 2 Summit Conferences

Retail Value: $3261 - Included Free with Your Purchase!

10 Courses:

Summit Conferences:

The courses in this collection cover a wide range of specialized topics including Cinerender, GDL, BIMx, Highly Detailed Modeling, Templates, Stairs and Railings etc. plus the incredible set of lessons created in the Masters of ARCHICAD 2017 program by three international masters building an entire project together.

Each of the two Masters of ARCHICAD Summit Conferences featured inspiring presentations by a dozen ARCHICAD masters, sharing their work and insights from years of experience.

At full retail prices, these fantastic ARCHICAD educational resources have a total value of $3261.

The lowest price they've ever been sold for is $1000 as a bundle during my Black Friday Sales.

Right now, you can get them as a FREE bonus with your signup for the ARCHICAD Best Practices 2020 course.