We had a chance to chat with
both Richard and Nicola and
ask them about their time
with WZMH Architects and
in the industry at large. As
with many businesses, ar-
chitectural firms have gone
through several important
changes as a result of recent
technological advantages, the
biggest being the switch from
hand-drawn, 2D designs to 3D
modeling.
“I think that, universally, a lot
of firms, not just in Toronto
but also all over the world,
are experiencing a change
now. We experienced a similar
change 15-20 years ago, and
we put away the conventional
drafting tool and started to
use computers… What’s hap-
pened in the past 5 years or
so is another kind of revolu-
tion. It’s basically computer-
ized drafting on steroids. It’s
no longer drawing flat, 2D
plans and sections and eleva-
tions, it’s modeling in 3D…It
seems to have a lot of momen-
tum and a bright future,” says
Nicola.
The hard part now, says Rich-
ard, is retraining his staff. “We
have a lot of very experienced,
technologically strong people
in our office and the software
shift to BIM (Building Infor-
mation Modelling) has come
up very quickly. We find that
a lot of the young people are
getting trained in the soft-
ware, but they don’t have the
experience, and a lot of the
experienced people aren’t as
quick to learn the software.
The same was true 20 years
ago for AutoCAD. It’s always
a natural shift and it’ll take
some time before it balances
out again.”
Nicola was quick to agree,
stating, “We’ve had to do a lot
of training. We have a man-
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