Charles William Feyh Architect

Valhalla Plaza Shopping Center, Building 3, North Elevation

It was 1981 when I started using a computer in my architectural practice. VisiCalc and EasyWriter, a far from easy wordprocessor, were the mainstays on my Apple II. My first drafting program was MacDraft from IDD. Tech support, in those days, consisted of taking my files over to IDD's offices in Concord, Calif., sitting down with them and trying to resolve the problem. Over the years, I have used MacDraft, MacDraw, Dreams, MacDraft 3.1, MiniCAD, PowerDraw and currently PowerCADD 4.0 with WildTools 4.0.

In 1989, I had employees, an office building, and all of the overhead and headaches that go along with that approach to practicing architecture. I now have a virtual office operating out of my home and acquire drafting help as needed. Email and email attachments are my primary methods of communication. PowerCADD is a major factor in achieving the efficiency required for this business model.

Besides being great drafting tools, PowerCADD and WildTools are very powerful presentation tools. My typical approach to a project is to do a black-and-white presentation package and then use that package as a basis for color elevations, color and materials boards, and working drawings. Once plans and elevations are done in the design phase, they are 80% done for the working drawing phase. For color work, I start with the PowerCADD files, render them using PhotoShop and Painter and them bring them back into PowerCADD for resizing and printing. I also use scanned drawings and pages from T-24 energy reports and soils reports, pasting them directly into drawing files. While PowerCADD may be at its best and most efficient as a production drawing tool, it is also a great presentation tool. I get a lot of enjoyment from using it -- and how many other CAD packages can you say that about?

Charles W. Feyh

Chuck Feyh

Chuck Feyh is an architect in Martinez, California. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1966 and has been practicing architecture in California since 1974. Chuck enjoys tennis, camping, and square dancing. Email cfeyh@aol.com

To learn more about Chuck, check out his website.

More drawings by Chuck Feyh

Automobiles     Apartments     Shopping Center