A Profile of David Nicholson-Cole

David is the author of the famous GDL Cookbook, and more recently of the small book on Object-Making that appeared with the release of ArchiCAD®7. The GDL Cookbook has done as much as anything to move GDL from an arcane Hungarian secret to a popular 3D language dabbled in by thousands, and used professionally by hundreds of users. He has been teaching at Nottingham University in England for many years and regularly travels to parts of the world teaching GDL. We put a few questions to him about his work with Graphisoft®'s ArchiCAD.

First tell us something about yourself

I trained as an architect at Liverpool University back in the 70's. I was always interested in computers, but then they were based on punch cards and paper tape. After a few years of professional practice, I taught at Nottingham University - the usual stuff - construction, studio courses. I always kept an interest in real-life practice and have always regretted not escaping from academia back to practical architecture. But if I had, I might have been an AutoCAD user now (:-)

I am 55 now, with a wife and 2 grown up children. My main leisure interest is windsurfing; with a bit of motorbiking, sailing and skiing when I can get it.

When did you first become an ArchiCAD user?

I first tried ArchiCAD in 1989 with version 3.0 on a Macintosh 2. But in the context of teaching undergraduates, solid modelling was more attractive, so I rather ignored it in favour of Modelshop, Strata Studio, Design Workshop, Swivel 3D and so on, with ClarisCAD for 2D. Our dongles were stolen, and for a while, ArchiCAD disappeared altogether from the School. We repurchased it again in 1994 as version 4.0, and from there it was rapidly accepted by me and the students: 2 dongles evolved to the present 50-user licence in rapid steps.

At that time, I still regarded ArchiCAD 4.0 as 'walls, floors and roofs', but ArchiCAD 5.0 was a major improvement; discovering GDL in late 1996 was for me, utterly life changing. I learned it in one weekend from an old 4.5 GDL manual, taking on board all the ideas of parametrics effortlessly. I was teaching it a week later, and was creating the first pages of the GDL Cookbook 6 months later. GDL isn't just a useful skill, it's a pleasure, like being able to play the guitar or chess.

What role does ArchiCAD play in your professional life?

It governs it entirely, my principal teaching channel is ArchiCAD teaching, and I run a module in the University in GDL. The vacations are spent either doing GDL, teaching GDL or organising ArchiCAD University events. My current friendship tree (based on email) is 80-90% ArchiCAD oriented. GDL has brought me international travel, skiing and sailing opportunities which I could not have imagined 5 years ago.

What makes you so committed to ArchiCAD?

My total belief in the concept of the Virtual Building; a firm conviction that ArchiCAD best achieves this; it's the only real way to create and use GDL; and I have some very good friendships with Graphisoft and ArchiCAD user/resellers which would make any sort of a change feel like a major personal bereavement. Having been a founding member of the GDL Alliance, I feel bound by family loyalty to stay with ArchiCAD.

Many people know of you via ArchiCAD University. What's the future of ACUE? This summer's was said to be the last.

I said it would be the last, because people were so late signing up that in mid-August it looked like we might lose several thousand pounds. As the sole guarantor, that debt would fall entirely on me. But it all came right in the last 2 weeks with a late rush of bookings. There is immense peer pressure on me to do it again, year after year, despite the personal risk and the loss of holiday, because it is organised during the summer months. It is non-profit-making; all proceeds are rolled into paying start-up costs for the next event.

We have 2 main events a year:

Ebensee - the venue for the 2004 ArchiCAD University Winter School.

• The Summer School in Nottingham, our premier event, highly international, averaging 100 at every event, and booked again for mid Sept 2004.

• The Winter School , which takes place in January - a perfectly enjoyable, weeklong experience for 35-40 ArchiCAD users. We have skiing by daylight, and then spend the dark evenings in the cosy hotel with snow swirling mysteriously around the windows outside, the projector and laptops glowing, while we talk about ArchiCAD. The ACU winter School is jointly organised along with the Austrian ArchiCAD Users Association, and supported by all the resellers in Austria, particularly HABRA and A_NULL.

This coming year, we are going global, and organising ACUWest 2004, a Spring School in Los Angeles in March 2004, inviting ArchiCAD users from the West and Mid-West to take part - run on the lines of the Summer School.

The only one we failed to hold was in 2001, when the main speakers were due to fly to England on the fateful day of 11th Sept 2001. We felt the need to postpone the whole event 7 months, to April 2002.

What kind of organization goes into each ACUE?

Now that my friends in California are organising one for 2004, I realise how much experience I have gained of organising these events - I have written out pages of advice on organisation. There's one very special ingredient that no amount of experience can buy - the crazy willingness to take on the RISK. The turnover of a summer ACUE is more than my annual salary; this is the amount I risk if the event goes wrong - nobody else shares that risk.

It wouldn't be possible without the moral support of Graphisoft who advertise it and send good people - it's the kind of event which still has to be seen to be user funded and organised. GS could not organise such an event and make it authentically user oriented - so they are happy that ACUE do it. We have to plan ahead; the accommodation has to be booked a year in advance to be sure of getting it! This summer I actually drove out to Budapest from Salzburg in a rented Skoda, to see 'the Centre of the Universe', but also to impress on GS how much we valued their support.

Once it's happening, you are dependent on the talent of the speakers and tutors that you have invited, and we have a good and supportive team, especially Adrian Harms and Howard Gill of Bite in Nottingham, and Dwight Atkinson of Vancouver.

How do you feel after every ACUE?

Happy! Relieved? it's before ACUE that I have the greatest anxieties. Every ACUE has been a success, which has pushed me into agreeing to do the next one. It's a treadmill I cannot get off.

How do you convince people that ArchiCAD is better than the opposition?

It would be so much easier if CAD were like football. You could support your team (e.g. Nottingham Forest or Birmingham City) and hate the opposition (Derby, Leicester, Aston Villa and any London team) - based or where you live or on a gut instinct or just love. But it's much more complex than that. The choice of CAD solution is more than just a way of making a living. You make a financial and an intellectual investment in CAD. Having spent years of your life with one system, it's hard to change. CAD has become a cultural belief system, and for me two words "Virtual Building™" most sum up why I have chosen ArchiCAD, and why I promote it to others.

I have had many students pass under my guidance over the years, and I hope that a percentage of them will carry this message on and convert their conservative employers to change gear from a 2D dead-end to 3D and the Virtual building.

What do you most enjoy doing with ArchiCAD?

Solving a very difficult piece of GDL is, for me, the most enjoyable part of ArchiCAD - I sometimes do complex things for free, just because I have enjoyed doing it. The more challenging it is in the circle or parabolic geometry or graphical hotspots, the more I like it.

Are you optimistic about the future of ArchiCAD?

With the release of ArchiCAD 8. 1 , the vigorous shake-up that GS has experienced and survived, the relative failure of ADT, the stuttering start of Revit, the obsolescence of AutoCAD and the freeing up of GDL, I see many reasons to be optimistic. I would be even more optimistic if there was a faster take up of GDL by manufacturers of building industry components. I am sure that GS feel this as keenly as I do.

If you have one, what is your wish list for ArchiCAD?

At this point, I have to say I wish I were 20 years younger. Apart from having more hair, I wish that the Virtual Building had emerged when I was in my 20s or 30s, with many years of career left to enjoy it. I feel confident that in 15 to 20 years time there will be remarkable capabilities in CAD software and processor speeds - and I hope that ArchiCAD will still be at the forefront.

Development of the software would be slower, if it were dictated by architects alone. What makes the present package remarkable to me is how computer scientists and logicians have, in effect, told architects that there is a better way to practice and design, and have provided the tools with which to do it - and a goodly number of architects have bought into this way of practicing.

Personally, I hope that GDL improves, and that it becomes easier to build web pages with GDL objects. Graphical editable Hotspots in AC8.0 have taken GDL to new heights of capability. I believe that GS should provide a defeatured version of ArchiCAD (like the student version) for GDL developers.

DNC

Thank you David, for so many valuable insights into your use of ArchiCAD and how it virtually runs your life! We hope the lead up to ACUE 2004 is less fraught than this year, and that the events continue to be as successful, popular and above all, as enlightening as they have been in the past. If there's a message for readers to heed, it's book earlier for ACU events - if only to make DNC's life a little less frantic in the lead up to them!

The Editor.