Welcome!

Welcome to the home of Otway Drafting.

We service Colac, Ballarat, Geelong, the surf coast, Warnambool and the areas between.

Yes, I’m in the Otways, a beautiful part of the world and I produce drawings for engineers, architects, builders and owner builders. If you’re designing your dream home I can do the drawings for you and I can take care of your council permit applications. We’ll even draw your pet pomeranian.

You’ll see some of my work here and to contact me click on the ‘contact’ tab. (Click first on the ‘Menu’ button)  Drop me a line and we’ll get in touch about your project.

CAD Moves Fast!

I spent ten years teaching all kinds of CAD at Swinburne University of Technology. My students were enrolled in civil engineering, architecture, mechanical and mechatronics at everything from post-grad to bachelor and diploma levels. I even had trade and high school classes as well as the programs for dilinquents. Its interesting how even the brightest kids have the same struggles with CAD as the lower levels. Some people have inate spacial ability and some just can’t see it even though there is a picture in front of them. (Actually I did hear a professor from Melbourne uni who researched spatial ability and academic performance in the engineering disciplines and he found that its spatial ability which sorts them out even though there is no screening for that aptitude before they get to university.)

But the surprising thing with computers is how fast things change. For one thing its the hardware; the box with the electronic components, they just get faster and better every year or two. Then there is the software. Autocad has been around for forty years and every engineering company has a huge pile of Autocad work archived away and there are plenty still using it. About fifteen years ago 3D CAD started to appear and there has been a gradual transition to 3D ever since.

I remember talking to my colleagues at the uni and discussing the new 3D software that was changing the industry. “We really should teach this stuff”. But a big ship is hard to steer, it takes a long time to change direction and we never did. So after teaching for ten years you would think it would be a simple matter to go into practice designing buildings.

I’ve spent nearly a year evaluating the available 3D CAD programs that we didn’t touch at Swinburne, narrowed it down to two and I’ve chosen to use one called Sketchup. I’ve had to relearn all I thought I knew about CAD. Sketchup has only been there for ten years and most of that time it was a bit of a toy. Google owned it for six of those years and made it freely available because they wanted millions of people to build 3D models of all the buildings in the world so they could put them on Google Earth. Since that process is now largely automated they sold Sketchup four or five years ago to a company called Trimble. These days it has been developed into a tool that is being used by architects and a wide range of other professionals. Its a fast, intuitive program with lots of neat features. I’m amazed how much has changed in so little time.

House Plans on Pinterest

Its amazing what you can find on Pinterest! The photos are small and you wouldn’t think house plans would be a very good subject for Pinterest but its amazing to browse through some of the collections. For getting a feel for the differences between styles, for finding traditional or contemporary designs of various sizes, for seeing how people approach the layout of rooms, Pinterest can surprisingly do a lot.

I’ve begun a few collections of houses, architecture and architectural details on my Pinterest account and eventually I hope it will be a way to help customers choose a general theme, a style and the beginnings of a layout for designing their own house.

To find me on Pinterest, go to http://www.pinterest.com and you will soon find the search function. Type in my name; Arnold Rowntree and you will see a collection of ‘boards’. The first in the list is titled ‘Houses’. Its only a beginning, I keep finding interesting designs to add, perhaps we can talk soon.

Modern or Post-Modern?

What time is it? How can we describe where architecture is at these days? That was a question that occurred to me a few years ago and so I thought I’d get my civil engineering students to find out for me. I set my next fresh class of kids in the materials science subject an introductory assignment about the difference between traditional, modern and post -modern. “Give me a definition of each and list the main materials used in each.” It was an interesting exersize, two dozen student papers are always interesting but a definite thread emerged.

Modern architecture was being proposed in the mid1800’s and became common in the early 1900’s. It is recognisable by its rectangular minimalist shapes, flat grey concrete, lots of glass, up on pillars, flat roofs, strip windows, often a roof garden. The famous slogan of modernism is “less is more”. Many social commentators say that the modern is a rejection of the past. None of the features of the past are allowed in the modern. There is no reflection of past currents or trends, its as if the page has been wiped clean.

Post-modern is a reaction against the total annihilation of the past that characterises modernism. The post-moderns cry “give us back our symbols”.  A rootless, featureless existence is unbearable, a culture cannot be cut adrift from its foundations. And so the slogan for post-modernism has become “less is a bore” and late twentieth century architecture might look modern but has the occasional arch, parapet, bright colour. Not all post-modern architecture looks back beyond modernism but at least it looks for decoration with a range of materials or breaks the sheer flat planes of modernism into either shards or a mosaic. Melbourne’s Federation square is a good example of that. Its not really a return to the roots of our civilisation but that’s another story for another day.

New Materials

At the time I built our family home, ten years ago, we bought plans from an architect (before I started designing buildings) and those plans called for hardwood beams. The Otway logging protests were in the news and the state government caved in and shut down the industry. The supply of hardwood virtually dried up and alternatives had to come to the fore. It might be bad for forest management but perhaps it was a good thing for building design.

One of the most interesting was HJ200, a light, strong engineered beam made of plywood like the one pictured. I was really impressed with this, it would arrive on the back of a truck in 10 metre lengths and if it wasn’t so whippy and floppy you could almost carry a length with one hand. But as soon as you put it in place and nailed flooring on it it became so rigid and strong it was hard to believe such a light product could give such support. Not only was it very straight and strong, it is able to span long distances.

There are other engineered beams available; LVL and Gluelam are some common names. I used LVL for some larger lintels in our house, this is a radiata pine plywood available 90mm thick but in larger widths like 600mm or more. It comes in just about whatever length you might need and again, can span cavernous distances. I have seen pictures of amazing architecture built from these products, it enables breathtaking cantilevers and enormous open plan spaces.

Church and State Architecture

The state government offices in Geelong are well know to everyone who lives there as “The Upside Down Pyramid”. As an architectural statement it speaks more loudly than most buildings I have ever seen. My family and I were attending the little Presbyterian church across the road for some years while we lived in Geelong during the 1990’s. It seemed as if the delicate balance of the relationship between the institutions of church and state had skewed a little out of balance every time the congregation came out onto Fenwick St. after the service.

Pyramids speak of permanence, continuity, Empire and above all they are funerary. For people familiar with the bible, pyramids also have a connotation of forced labour and servitude. Can you imagine stepping into the shadow of an upside down pyramid looming over you after a sermon on Moses and Pharaoh in Egypt?

Houses Are Inflated!

One of the internet memes that caught my eye over the last year or two is The Tiny House. On Pinterest I see it everywhere, perhaps because as a building designer I follow that kind of thing but lots of people I know recognise the meme. But the reality in Australia is quite different. Over on realestate.com.au there is an article claiming that Australian houses are now, on average, the biggest in the world. So why the fascination with tiny houses?

I built a nice house myself ten years ago and we have lots of children and so it needed to be a sizeable house. An owner builder project allows you to spend a bit more on materials and size than you would when you pay a builder and so ours was a bigger house than I might have expected to live in. Since then the regular maintenance has been a bit of a chore and my wife who is a bit house-proud sets herself a punishing routine whenever guests are expected.

The first time I saw an idealised photo of a ‘tiny house’ I stopped and sighed. What a dream! No maintenance and so much easier to maintain and clean.

Prices, Rates, Fees and Quotes for Drafting Work

Its often the first question I’m asked, “What are your rates?” and so I do have an hourly rate which I do quote and that’s $50 per hour. However, I’m not sure if I’ve ever charged anyone by the hour except when I’m training draftsmen in manufacturing companies or architectural firms. And that rate came from the many years I spent training civil and mechanical engineering students at Swinburne Uni in a past life.

For house alterations or extensions where I may be asked to submit a building permit application or other related items, people expect a quote in advance and so then I’m working on an estimate of my time and costs.

I’ve seen budget drafting services quote $35 per hour but I’m sure they are also quoting on the basis of estimates. The software tools a draftsman uses make quite a difference too. Modern 3D programs allow a customer to ‘get inside’ a design and ‘see’ what they’re getting. Then the construction documents, the plans and elevations come quickly and efficiently from the 3D model. Someone plodding along with older 2D software is going to be sitting there a long time.

And so hourly rates don’t really tell the whole story since I usually quote by the job. In the case of larger projects like a house, once a customer has settled on a design and agreed on a price I normally take a payment for half the price and the remainder on providing the prints.

3D Model of a House

Even if a house hasn’t been built yet, you can still get a feel for how it’ll look. A 3D model can show you how the house feels with alternative decor styles and you can even have a walk through.

Real Estate Agents can show buyers the finished state when the property first becomes available even though the earth moving at the site may be all that’s been done so far.

Residential builders can show their spec. homes even before they are ready to take visitors. Perhaps the display home isn’t ready yet.

New Service for Real Estate Agents

Quick and basic house plans for advertising purposes can really add to the hand leaflet in the Real Estate Agent’s shop when a customer is looking at a house. A flat rate and fast turn-around help an agent to get a new leaflet into the rack quickly. I’ll take the photos for the house if necessary and will be happy to take care of the listing on your website.