Has Archicad killed the Architect?

I recently downloaded Archicad. It is a 3D rendering programme to create any building from the ground up.

I am literate in a number of graphics packages and within minutes I had a rough idea of what I was doing. Two days later and a complete two story house with 3D walk through sat on my desktop. Friends and colleagues marvelled. Wow. You did that? We didn't know you were an architect?

That got me to thinking. A month or two of dedicated practise and any talented teenager could be churning out house designs by the dozens. No formal education required, just a knack for software and design.

Hmm. I wonder what the time investment and cost would be for the university degree. It doesn't seem fair somehow, does it?

 

But there's so much more to Architecture than just a mere 3D rendering. It's like saying Sketch-up is killing Architecture. As someone who has gone through a gruelling 7 years of Architecture school, there is a HUGE difference between designing something that looks good and something that is build-able, liveable and usable.

Architects have to think about absolutely everything. Where you eat, where you sleep, where you poop, where the poop goes, where the water comes from, will it freeze, where the socket goes, how is the roof going to stay up, how the air is going to flow, how you find the building, how you get to it, from it, through it. There's just so much more to a building. It's almost a living thing.

If you get it wrong, it's a lot of money, time and lives involved. And that's one of the reasons why I'm no longer an Architect. Not everyone can handle it.