Best Architecture Design Software for Students
Everyone has career goals and plans to achieve them, but a road map is required to reach your goal. If you’re an architecture student, you are sure that designing and working on the computer is going to be a practice for you more common than having a meal. Today in this article, we’re going to cover the best software that you should use as a student of architectural design.
Let’s take a look at the best tools and software for architectural design students. But before that, have a glance over the criteria for choosing the software.
Criteria for Choosing Architectural Design Software:
Here we’ve covered the criteria that you should keep in mind how you can choose the best software for architecture so that it can stay with you in your journey of becoming a professional in architecture.
- Usability and User Interface: You’re a student, not a professional, so it becomes very important that the software you’re using has a good amount of ease in working with it so that you can work better instead of getting scared. There comes the UI and usability of the software you‘re using for designing.
Here in our list, we’ve covered the various software that are easy in terms of usability and understanding, as well as great user experience.
- Features and Capabilities: Features and capabilities are the second criteria for choosing the right software so that you don’t feel like being unprofessional or having a gap in the learning procedure. We’ve kept this in mind and all this software has the maintained standard of all required features that software must have
- Compatibility and Integration: The compatibility of the software should match your system, whether you’re a student today but whenever it comes to choosing any software, you always have to keep in mind the configuration of the computer you work on and the software you’re planning to use should be supported on it.
- Cost and Licensing: As a student, you’ll always be concerned about the cost and pricing of these software’s. It’s a point you need to manage according to your pocket and budget. You can ask your seniors and well-wishers also they can also help you manage these terms.
- Community and Support: The software you use should have good community support and customer care, as well as how often they introduce updates of the software as industries nowadays are too demanding for new trends and features for better functioning in the software.
- Learning Curve: This is very important that, as a student, you learn things very easily; however, this also depends on the individual’s grasping abilities.
We can work on the technical part and focus on the software that is easy to learn at first, but as you get better, you’ve got to shift to more professional software.
Best Architectural Design Software for Students
So keep the above-mentioned criteria as the center; we’ve created a list of the best tools or software for you to work on as a student of architecture design. These all tools are highly effective to use and have their own specifications. You have to be good at them. These tools are so good for students that they are used by many and masses.
You can start your journey with any of these, and once you feel confident, you can move on to others.
- SketchUp Free: It is a tool for 3d modeling. Students can use it to practice their 3D modeling skills. SketchUp Free is a free web-based cloud version of SketchUp. The best thing about this is that you can work on it without downloading the software, as it is a web version, so it becomes very easy and hassle-free for you to access it. Compatible with other sketch-up versions, cloud-based storage, so there is no need to worry about storage and saves, and Drag and drop based 3D modeling tool that is very easy to use.
It is free to use and has a very simple curve, making it great for simple projects. However, you’ll feel limitations when it comes to complex projects, as the features are also less as compared to the complete version.
- AutoCAD Student Version: Student version of AutoCAD by Autodesk. You get full access to the robust AutoCAD Suite. You can go for 2D and 3D modeling. With the AutoCAD Student version, you can do complex and professional design in architecture projects.
It is widely used by many institutes, educators, and students and has great community support, though. It has an extensive library of various premade templates and layouts to make your work easier, is supported, and compatible with the Autodesk ecosystem tools, and holds several industry-standard features and functionalities that keep introducing updates from time to time.
However as the tool is professionally designed and fully loaded with features, it needs a high-end system and is a little complex in learning curve and usability.
- Blender: Blender is not just for students; it is widely used by professionals as well. It is an industry-level software that holds so much lot of features for 2D and 3D modeling, animation simulation, and rendering. The features of a blender are so high that it is perfectly capable of being suitable in industry. Student can use a blender and enhance their skills by multiple times The interface of the blender is not easy at first glance, but it can be usable once you start working on it. It’s open source and highly customizable, with a huge library and community support.
- Tinker CAD: A very quick and efficient choice for students is to go for Tinker CAD. It’s a free web and cloud-based tool by Autodesk, just like Free Sketch Up, but it is, even more, student-friendly in terms of the user interface and ability to work efficiently on prototypes and learning purpose projects. Similarly, it has features that also require an internet connection, is not much of a requirement for your system, and has become very easy to use and beginner’s friendly.
Complementary Tools for Architects
- Adobe Photoshop: Adobe Photoshop is a very commonly used and basic piece of software in the world of design and photo manipulation. It holds several features, like heavy editing, image manipulation, 3D modeling, etc., that are essential when it comes to design, whether the design is of any type. Adobe Photoshop is required. It has a very easy learning curve, making it a perfect complementary tool for architects.
Being versatile software, it’ll help the architects work on detailing in various required areas.
- Adobe Illustrator: Another piece of software from the Adobe family Illustrator works on vector graphics, and still, graphics become a crucial tool to be used in 2D animations and designing. Industry-level features and ease of use in terms of user interface Illustrator provides graphics to are highly scalable and precise. Using Illustrator, you’ll be well familiar with the graphics from a very basic level, and it’ll be beneficial to you even when working on complex projects.
- Lumion: Lumon offers you real-time 3d rendering features. The tool is based on an easy drag-and-drop methodology, making it very easy to use, beginner-friendly, and simple to use. Provide quick adjustment in designs and rendering becomes easy when it is real-time based.
You need to remember that real-time rendering and all these features of the software make it much heavier so the system requirements are also high.
Tips for Architecture Students
Here are a few tips if you want to build a strong career in design, even if you’re a student with a degree or just an aspirant These tips are for you to excel in the world of design.
Learning and mastering software: When it comes to learning the software, you should focus on practicing the stuff instead of just going through the course; practical experience is the key to becoming better at design. Also, learn the basics first with patience. When it is clear, you can start a high-level project. Once you start feeling confident with the maximum features of a single tool, you can shift to another tool with a steep learning curve.
Balancing between design and technical skills: Designing is a skill of art, and using tools is technical; don’t get confused between both of them. Many times, students might explore the features of the tool roughly and may think that they learned the tool, whereas learning the technical part of the tool is not enough; you also need to enhance your creative approach.
Utilizing online resources and communities: You are not alone in this journey. You should connect to similar people offline, and if not possible, the online community is always there. You can share your queries if you are concerned about any particular topic, and people with similar interests will help you.
Importance of staying updated with new tools and technologies: It is very important to stay updated with the latest technology, keep updating your software, and learn to become better at your work. Software updates often increase efficiency and bring more features to improve the functionalities of the tool.
Conclusion:
Choosing the right software is very important because it is a tool that is going to drive you to your destination as an architect student. This is dependent on your previous knowledge, system configuration, and industrial demands.
Keep practicing the tool you’re using, and always try to improve your design approach and the tools as per the industry requirements. Designing is a very demanding career, and you can see yourself at heights with it; you just need to be attentive and updated with the industrial demand and keep yourself ready for that.
Remember, it is the designer who designs the stuff, not the tool. The sky is the limit.
