Productivity

Tools for the work around the drawing: project templates, calculators, scripts that automate repetitive modelling, marketing guides and organisational systems.

Most time lost in a project is not lost in design. It goes on placing the same blocks by hand, recalculating areas after a layout change, rebuilding a folder structure, or rewriting the same client email. Each of those is small; together they are the reason a deadline arrives before the drawings do.

Automation is worth it where a task is both repetitive and rule-based — scattering vegetation, calculating slopes, generating variations. It is not worth it where judgement is involved, and a script that produces a hundred options you then have to evaluate has moved the work rather than removed it.

See the design brief, what to charge as a freelancer and habits of a successful architect.