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ArchiCAD Heroes

Shoegnome would never have existed if I wasn’t such a huge fan of Onland.info. I’ve gushed over James Murray’s blog before. He stopped updating his site about the time I started writing mine, so I feel a responsibility to carry the torch he held for so many years. Most of his 679 posts are still just as relevant now as they were when James wrote them.

When I was teaching myself ArchiCAD, I spent a lot of time on the ArchiCAD-talk forum. Okay let me rephrase that. With no one local to teach me, I learned from all the experts on the forum. That’s more accurate, though less romantic sounding. I still spend as much time as I can reading, scanning and learning.

When looking for posts to read, I have three tactics.

  1. Search for topics that I am interested in.
  2. Look for posts with attachments. Attachments usually mean pictures. And pictures mean that I get to see the problem and solution. I like that.
  3. Read anything that I come across written by a group of users I refer to as my ArchiCAD Heroes. – TomWaltz, Link, Djordje, Karl Ottenstein, and laszlonagy are probably my top 5. Check out Tom Waltz’s avatar. That says it all. There are easily another dozen or so giants as well that I search out. I’m sure I’ll talk about them later. Tom and Link haven’t been active on the forum for some time, but all their posts are still amazing.

I really like the definition of hero from Wikipedia

Coined in English 1387, the word hero comes from the Greek “ἥρως” (heroes), “hero, warrior”,[2] literally “protector” or “defender”[3]

Warrior, Protector, Defender

Reading the posts of my ArchiCAD Heroes, I always feel that I am watching defenders of not just ArchiCAD and BIM, but of working intelligently, striving for improvement, and preparing for the future.

So who are your ArchiCAD Heroes?

Comments

  • August 6, 2012
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    samaimehdi

    I’m always a neophyte, I stated using ArchiCad for 5 or 6 month, and i learned a lot form “Eric Wilk and Yves houssier”, in the forum of Archicad French users : Fc-cadlink.com. Recently i visit regularly your blog (and tweets), there’s a lot interesting publication. So keep up the good work.

  • August 7, 2012
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    Frédéric DESCHAMP

    David Nicholson Cole, Eric Wilk, Olvier Dentan, Claude Zanelli, Yves Houssier, Mirco Sorgato, Dwight Atkinson, Miguel Krippahl, Franck Beister, Ralph Wessel, Matthew Lohden, James Murray, Andy Thomson, David Maudlin

    For the one who share their knowledges.

  • August 7, 2012
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    wyroby betonowe

    Thankyou for helping out, fantastic information.

  • August 8, 2012
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    Frédéric DESCHAMP

    And I beg my pardon for the numerous ArchiCAD Heroes I forget and the more numerous I don’t know… 😉

  • August 9, 2012
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    Miguel Krippahl

    I agree with the list, except that Miguel guy that Frédéric included. 😉

    What always made me be in awe of those guys is their willingness to share their knowledge freely. Without them, many ArchiCAD users would be much less productive and have much less fun with the software. And they do it for FREE!

    Thank you all.

  • August 15, 2012
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    Fabio Cantu

    Well, my heroes are (alphabetically arranged):
    Eric Bobrow
    Jared Banks
    Miguel Krippahl (when he used to blog)
    The guy from the archicad tutorials

    I´ve learned ArchiCAD from you guys, thanks!

  • August 15, 2012
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    Djordje

    Blushing here, Jared … thanks!

    All of the above, each with a special field of expertise. Even more deserving of praise are the guys who run non-English blogs and cater to much smaller community.

    Sadly, I do not have time to dedicate to ArchiCAD Talk any more … but keep on thinking about it.

    And, when I was beginning in mid 90s, my definite hero was Laszlo Vertesi. But, as he would be the last to accept a pat on the back, I will do the same, acknowledge the praise and move on … there is a lot to do in the new BIM world.

  • August 15, 2012
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    Djordje

    Well, yes … there are many people catering to the ArchiCAD community in languages other than English.

    Another one of my heroes is Mr. Ivan Hajzler, the driving force behind hiCAD, the Graphisoft distributor for most of ex-Yugoslavia. He translated and published every ArchiCAD training manual since 4.55 I think, often at the company’s expense. It goes without saying that throughout Europe, the ArchiCAD stronghold worldwise, the local effort is what keeps it going.

    Cheers to all the unsung heroes! 🙂

  • August 16, 2012
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    Gordana Radonić

    I would like, in addition to his global engagement, to point out high activity of ĐorÄ‘e Grujić in the popularization of CAD, and nowadays BIM technology, in the major area of ex-Yugoslavia. I will mention only three fields of his activity, which I find important for this area: Co-founder and active member of the nonprofit organization for the promotion of CAD in the late 80’s: CADUA. Author of numerous papers about architectural softwares, of which 64 have been published in prestige magazine PC Press, where 41 are about ArchiCAD. And last, but not least, his activity on forum Dizajn Zona (Design Zone), engaged in architecture among other interests, where he sent over 740 posts (with four threads counting over 52k views). I would say that numbers always say a lot.

  • September 8, 2012
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    Karl Ottenstein

    Coming late to the party… Thanks for that, Jared! Blushing here, too.

    When I learned ArchiCAD in 2000, there were no classes available and the internet and computers were painfully slow by today’s standards, so screen-sharing/WebEx/Skype, YouTube etc were only dreams.

    Like you, I learned from the amazing international ArchiCAD community of users on the original ArchiCAD-talk hosted on ‘e-scribe’. Not sure if those posts are archived anywhere? Of those generous people, Djordje Grujic was at the top. David Nicholson-Cole was constantly available to teach and help with GDL – there and on the GDL list (and is still online – but less active). Dwight Atkinson many posts and books taught me both modeling nuances and the fine points of rendering, composition and communication through imagery. So many of those old e-scribe friends and genius users from around the world are not active any longer, but are well-remembered with gratitude. I still learn from not just all of the people mentioned in the replies here, but from almost every user on ArchiCAD-talk.

    For me, becoming active in replying to ArchiCAD-talk posts was about ‘paying it forward’ – in thanks to all of the people on e-scribe and ac-talk from whom I learned – and to continue that ‘post graduate’ education in ArchiCAD: every problem someone has that isn’t something I’ve seen before is an opportunity to learn something new (or maybe just to confirm a bug).

    Thanks for the call out, and thanks for your energy strengthening ArchiCAD education!

  • October 24, 2013
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    Link

    Hi Jared

    Just saw this now that you referred to it recently. Thanks for the mention.

    I too remember the old escribe days.
    The community was much smaller then but very focused and helpful. Karl, Djordje and Dwight were the obvious stand outs in my archicad development. I have had the pleasure of meeting them all and I still respect them imensely. There have been so many more people helping along the way and that’s a big part of what made me fall in love with the software. A community that is so passionate about their program that they are always willing to help. It’s like a big family and who wouldn’t want that bundled with their favorite software?

    So I was always happy to spend hours on end providing the best ArchiCAD advice I could via archicad-talk posts. Not only was I trying to help others on their journey but it provided a great opportunity to really master the program myself.

    Like you, I always felt very indebted to this community and have literally traveled to the ends of the Earth to repay what it has offered me. I am sure that many people who have had to step away from it still recall it fondly.

    In this new era of ArchiCAD heroes, you have certainly cemented your position as a top ArchiCAD influencer. You’ve worked really hard and should be congratulated. I’ll thrilled for you!

    Personally, I sincerely look forward to the day that I am involved in the ArchiCAD community again and am (still) deeply appreciative that I have the support to do so.

    Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. And watch this space!

    Cheers,
    Link.

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