KYLE FIDDELKE, OJB PRINCIPAL, ON USING VECTORWORKS, IN WORLD ARCHITECTS

OJB Principal, Kyle Fiddelke, recently spoke at the Vectorworks Design Summit in Chicago, IL. Stemming from this appearance, World Architects covered the discussion on “Integrating Technology while Designing for the Public.” Fiddelke’s presentation highlighted the importance of integrating Vectorworks technology into the design process and described the approach taken with the OJB designed Park at Lakeshore East.

Key excerpts:

Fiddelke asserted at the start of his talk that OJB has been using Vectorworks since the firm’s inception, back when the software was called MiniCad. Although OJB was using MiniCad for the Park at Lakeshore East, the same lessons that were brought up in more recent projects in the talk (Devon Energy, Myriad Botanical Gardens and Project 180 in Oklahoma City, Klyde Warren Park in Dallas) apply here as well. These integrations of the technology into the design process include 3D modeling combined with Photoshop; easily illustrating design iterations through the use of layers (ideal for community meetings); printing out plans in b/w and coloring over them by hand to give them more appeal; and printing out color site plans and mounting them on foam core to give models some punch.

After completing DD (design development) documents with the software, OJB handed the computer files over to a local landscape architecture firm that handled the final documentation and construction administration. As Fiddelke described in a Vectorworks case study on the Park at Lakeshore East, “Our role was to establish the design intent, so the Vectorworks technology worked perfectly. It did exactly what we needed it to do.” The success of the park more than one decade later attests.