10 Things an Architect Uses Every Day
Gone are the days when an Architect is confined to a drawing board, they can now carry their entire office in their bag! So having embraced many forms of modern technology which allow our director to work anywhere providing he has a 4g or wifi signal, below Alwyn explains what he uses to be able to do this.
“My North Face Mens Fuse rucksack is big enough and comfortable enough to carry everything on my back for my near daily commute to the office. Whilst the 17” laptop is too big to go in the laptop compartment of the bag, it fits nicely in the main body with a protective cover leaving the laptop compartment for papers etc. A handy top pocket acts as an easily accessible pencil case and a front pocket has room for colouring pencils, pantone pens and a sketch book.”
Priced at £109.75 / Buy Backpack
“My laptop is Alienware – no this is not a mid life crisis trying to ‘keep down with the kids’ here’s Anna our IT whizz to explain why we’ve opted for these laptops.”
“The spec of these laptops is ideal for running high end graphic card heavy programs like Autodesk’s Revit. Essentially a gaming computer which means its pumped up for the exact spec Revit requires with the following:
Alienware 17.3-Inch Full HD Gaming Notebook – (Epic Silver) (Intel Core i7-7700HQ, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD Plus 1 TB HDD, NVIDIA GTX 1060 6 GB Graphics Card, Windows 10 Pro)”
“Hope that made sense to some of you?!”
Priced at £1879.99 / Buy Laptop
“A wired mouse and mouse mat. Experience has taught me that there is no point in trying to do architecture on a laptop with the keyboard mousepad! My preference is a wired mouse, doesn’t have to be fancy, as I find that a wireless mouse has a slight delay (or is it that I’m working too fast?!?) Personally I prefer the Logitech 910-003726 M500 Corded Mouse which is the one pictured here. A mouse mat is useful to ensure the mouse works on whatever surface you’re working on.”
Priced at £26.09 / Buy Logitech Mouse
“Having tried numerous sketch books over the years I currently favour an A5 version by Rayman. It has good quality paper, a band that allows me to keep a pen wedged within it at all times and its size is convenient to hold in one hand or even put in my jeans back pocket when traversing a scaffolding on site.”
Priced at £8.33 / Buy Sketchbook
“These Uni-Ball Signo Gel Pens are great for sketching, giving a fine uniform line for detailed work which I use with the PaperMate fibre pens to fill out for emphasis. With these pens I can produce effective freehand sketches of initial concept designs or construction details to share with the team or the client.
I use Rembrandt 72 Polycolour by Lyra colour pencils and Letraset Promarker pantones provide the option of colour to further enhance a freehand sketch.”
Priced at £12.74 / Buy Uni-Ball Signo Gel Pens
Priced at £5.32 / Buy PaperMate Fibre Pens
Priced at £68.68 / Buy Rembrandt 72 Polycolour Pencils
Priced at £19.75 / Buy Letraset Promarker Pens
“An iPhone with Skype , Timr and Dropbox apps installed.
Skype
This allows me to keep in touch with other team members with active dialogue and the ability to photograph sketches and comment on screen grabs in real time.
Timr
Timr is perfect for me to keep project specific time records on the go as well as record mileage when out on site visits or seeing clients.
Dropbox
Dropbox provides me with access to project and construction information from anywhere, including drawings when at the top of a scaffold on site.”
Priced at £255.00 / Buy iPhone
“A 150mm scale rule and a tape measure because it’s useful to actually measure things sometimes!
I also carry a Leica Disto laser device for precise distance measuring. It can do triangular and rectangular area calculations as well as room dimensions, volumes and various types of mathematical functions. Heights can be measured where there is no reflection point. “
Priced at £7.50 / Buy Scale Ruler
Priced at £22.74 / Buy Tape Measure
Priced at £148.00 / Buy Lecia Disto
“An A4 tracing pad and also grid paper for more accurate sketching work.”
Priced at £8.42 / Buy Tracing Pad
Priced at £11.45 / Buy Grid Paper
“Decent quality headphones in case I find myself working somewhere where another person thinks that their half of a mobile telephone conversation is something that I should hear loud and clear because it’s VERY important and can’t wait!”
Priced at £249.95 / Buy headphones
“And last but by no means least, a 4G dongle to allow a vpn connection to all project files as well as remote web access to an office based pc to work on a central Revit file hosted on a network server.”
Priced at £29.99 / Buy 4G dongle
