When I say CAD, I am including both 2D (e.g. painting using a tablet) and 3D (e.g. renders). I assume minor photo retouching does not count.

i like to put screen captures of plans in my portfolio?
i dunno

maybe if you wanted to show cad it would be more ideal to show a complete set of drawings and that is cumbersome and biggish..

CAD isn't evocative. Show work that demonstrates how you think as a designer...your design process.

When going to an interview bring a set of construction documents or details that you have done in CAD to show you are proficient.

I think most people don't want to show CAD work in their portfolios because they might then be hired just to be a CAD monkey and not to think about the design side of a project.

mambo, you mean CD's?

bring a design portfolio
and a set of CD's (contract/construction documents/drawings)

i landed as few exhibit jobs since i knew how to 1. put together a good set of construction drawings 2. was able to model in cad 3.knew how to utilize cad to make assembly drawings and parts for cnc/laser/plasma 4. organized sets of production/assembly drawings (different than your typical cd sets)....


not everyone can create a good set of dwgs and have them 'flow' right....

"mambo, you mean CD's?"

CAD = computer-aided design

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"CAD isn't evocative. Show work that demonstrates how you think as a designer...your design process."

Why couldn't CAD be evocative? I could demonstrate the process by which I created the CAD work.

portfolio is to show how you think and how you shift what you think in to what you make.

if cad is part of that, because you design with algorithms and chaos theory, then include it. if it is just a documentation thing then don't bother. do take them to job interview though. they work as nice proof of ability claimed by experience.

cad is not an end it is a means. you are selling yourself for the wrong things if you show the process of putting together cad docs. unless you are looking for a job where it is all about production and not design...

cad can be extremely evocative if done right.

take a look at steven ma's plan views for his latest pieces. that stuff is amazing.

hernan diaz alonso can do it too.

also, there's a lot of beautifully evocative work in the KRob competition site. take a look at those; if those don't rouse your interest, i'd be more than surprised.

i'm too lazy to post links. google those.

saying CAD can't be evocative is just backwards nostalgia or plain ignorance.

i don't understand the question then. what is adcomm? what kind of portfolio; school, work or client? since when did CAD represent all of those things? since when did renderings cease to become cool in portfolios? did i fall asleep and wake up in 1978??

beta, I think "adcomm" = admissions committee

I think CAD can be fine as one drawing of many which describes a project which you designed. The warnings against CAD are generally against CAD for CAD's sake, i.e. plans of existing buildings which you did not design. When presented in that way it's just a technical skill, which is not appropriate for a design portfolio. If CAD is presented as part of an overall design project, that is fine.

What about using cad (3d modeling) to illustrate broad terms?

For instance, I have in my portfolio schematics for a utilities (pipes & wire) enclosure partially buried. I could put in the hand drawn but I find that a CAD representation works better because it is more precise.

Yes... no?

does cad means renderings, or [plans sections elevations, details], or all of the above?

a nice rendering is only as good as the design, unless you are trying to sell rendering skills.

if you want a design job i don't care if you can render or even use autocad, bim, or maya. i do care if you have a way to get the ideas from your brain into a form that can be communicated in model, on paper, through speech, prose, or whatever.

a portfolio is to my mind a tool that shows you have that skill and that you have critical thinking abilities. how that is expressed is not relevant. render, sketch, mp3 file, glued pieces of string i couldn't care less. but if its just a rendering because you want to show you can use some software or other? don't bother. i don't care.

we get a lot of portfolios sent to our office that are like the latter. we keep them if they are interesting in other ways but usually they get tossed in the bin.

It seems to me like some CAD drawings can easily have a place in a portfolio. Yay pictures of a building, but as an architect I'm not fully going to understand the decision making of designing the building without some sort of plan or section or maybe just a detail. I instantly understand design decision much better when I see it drawn. While the finished product is important I use cad as a language everyday and its very important in the communication of ideas.
Now that doesn't mean I'm suggesting lots of CD drawings, but certainly a key drawing, probably cleaned up. Bring a set of CD's to discuss at 11x17 also since in the end if you can't translate an idea to CD's what use are you really? The idea behind this whole process is to actually end up with building. Basically my point is "CAD drawings" is probably overly vague for someone to say yay or nay without seeing the drawing.

Tish tosh, what's with all the mumbo jumbo, mambo?

CAD, are people even still using this acronym? Isn't it a relic of when you needed to differentiate from 'analog' design?

The machine is so ubiquitous that I dont believe soon any one will use 'CAD', it'll just be 'design.'

It's literally utterly impossible now to design, search for employment, or run an office sans a computer. People need to come off the retroactive nostalgia, i'm so so so so so so so sick of it.

my cooper union home test was probably the only thing that did not use a computer in the design, but that was 1994...

Where's the portfolio piece feature Paul? The one on the professional side not the academic portfolio. I'm just really interested to find out what you found is good to include for different levels of professional practice. Whats included at 4 years will be different from 10 and 20 clearly.

Wow, I didn't know CAD would be so unacceptible for a MArch I portfolio. And I didn't realize it was so important that most of the work included be big projects; I thought fine art, sketches, paintings, etc. were mainly what they were looking for (that's what I've seen in most of the MArch I portfolios I've encountered). The CAD pieces I have are not just copies of objects in real life, but original ideas. I guess I shouldn't be including them then. Unfortunately I only have 1 or 2 "big" projects that I could potentially include, nothing related to architecture, and most of my other stuff is just fine art. Oh well. I'll give it a shot anyway.

....i'm censoring so many of my thoughts/rants/nerd_rage right now...

MAMBO, whoever tells you CAD is unacceptable for any sort of portfolio is an idiot. that is all..

skills are skills.

you'll be surprised how many folks are not able to develop cad dwgs in both 2d and 3d......

hott renderings are one thing....but on an assembly/production level, understanding the 'building' aspect is another thing....

MAMBO,

Have you read the replies? Addiction said it well, 'skills are skills.'

MAMBO,

don't rule out CAD just because it's CAD...in general, the purpose of the portfolio for a professional program is to generally assess whether or not the prospect shows evidence of the ability to think, show creativity, and express ideas with clarity...

CAD drawings like some i've seen out of eric owen moss' office are some pretty amazing pieces of work that go far beyond just documenting the design for construiction...brian mackay-lyons is another office that does beautiful drawings...

that said, i doubt that you'll end up having many CAD drawings in your portfolio anyways...

so when picking out the pieces for your portfolio, think of what each selection is supposed to say about you...that you can think abstractly? that you can present complex information succinctly? to non-architects, they'd never be able to understand why a series of photographs of a particular dance movement might be worthy of inclusion...i would never have understood before i went to arch school either...

i was a student rep member on the admissions committee for my school one year and i can tell you they round-file the ones that have nothing abstract to say pretty quickly...such as people who submit anything resembling a book of house plans ready to build...