A couple of months ago, Susan Lanford, IIDA – Interior Design Coordinator and Senior Lecturer at The University of Texas at San Antonio [UTSA] – emailed us about conducting a 
survey regarding software use in the design community. Specifically, she was interested in what schools are teaching versus what architecture and design firms are using. After learning some new software ourselves*, we are now able to conduct that survey, and we ask that all of you professionals, educators, and students practicing or studying interior design, architecture and/or historic preservation kindly participate. We promise that it’s quick, painless and anonymous – taking at most two minutes of your time – but your input will be most valuable to academia and industry alike.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FINAL DAY TO COMPLETE THE SURVEY IS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2005, so we encourage you to go ahead and take two minutes to complete it before the holidays consume you. The survey results will be published on PLiNTH & CHiNTZ in the coming months.
To take the survey, click here.
*If you have an idea for a survey, write to us (contact@plinthandchintz.com), putting SURVEY in the subject line. State your goals, the thought process behind the subject matter, and provide a rough draft of the survey’s content and flow. We will be happy to consider it and work with you on its formulation and execution.
To give you a little more background and some possible food for thought for the survey’s optional comment fields, we are including some excerpts from Susan Lanford’s original email to PLiNTH & CHiNTZ:
Since the advent of computers there has no doubt been lines drawn about which platform and/or which software one should invest in for their projects. At universities and most larger design firms, it is a hard issue due to limited funding and the difficulty of changing systems in mid-stream.
I have found that certain 3-D software programs like form•Z are possibly better known on the west or east coasts, but not necessarily here in Texas. Most people tell me it is quite difficult for most “old school” designers to grasp, and I have experienced the students suffering and struggling first hand over the last five years. I am finding more and more designers and architects like to use SketchUp due to its intelligent and intuitive nature, and I hear anyone can learn in an afternoon… or most anyone.
I also hear misconceptions / controversy brewing daily about the issue of digital 3-D software becoming a design tool or possibly crutch for students – utilizing it before one has enough design experience as opposed to using the software simply as a rendering / presentation tool. I think it is up to universities to decide how and when these tools are introduced…
[The] goal is to make… graduates marketable to future employers in this competitive job market we face.
