Cheap, Easy Artchitecture Program

College Majors Architecture Major
1

<p>I want a cheap and easy-to-use program for creating floor plans. It does not need to be professional or have 3D capabilities as I am a business student and this is just for fun.</p>

<p>I've been using my girlfriend's Sims 2 and the huge squares are very limiting in certain situations. I also dislike the limitations when building on slopes and in corners. That said, it is pretty neat to see the house in 3D, but that brings out another flaw: the roof tool is very limited.</p>

<p>I enjoy looking at 2D plans, so I would be fine with something that turned out stuff like this:
<a href="http://www.trendmakerhomes.com/images/plans/a170/floorplan_1.gif%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.trendmakerhomes.com/images/plans/a170/floorplan_1.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>I was about to heckle you for thinking architecture was easy :)</p>

<p>Try Google Sketchup.</p>

3

<p>Thanks. I know there’s a lot between wanting to be an architect and actually seeing your ideas come to life, but I think floor plans are extremely interesting. Making everything fit and flow is like a big puzzle.</p>

4

<p>I agree. While I probably won’t ever become an architect, I still look forward to planning out the design of my house years from now.</p>

5

<p>One of my life goals is to live in one of my designs as well. If you aren’t an architecture major, what is/was your major if I may ask?</p>

6

<p>Don’t know as of yet. Going to a school without any design / architecture majors. Ultimately seems to be cheaper (and more beneficial) to go here and then do a masters in industrial design, landscape architecture, or something else entirely. (As opposed to going to a design school for undergrad.) Stanford’s product design master’s seems interesting.</p>

<p>I’ll probably be majoring in studio arts, film, or something in the liberal arts.</p>

<p>Landscape architecture seems almost more interesting to me than regular arch, if only because it’s a bit more…varied. Plus it’s a better field to get into than arch. Who knows if I’ll end up going into that. Time will tell.</p>

7

<p>Cool, cool. Good luck in your studies.</p>

8

<p>Thanks! You as well.</p>

9

<p>If you are willing to just look at one floor at a time Better Homes & Gardens Home Designer isn’t bad. You can get nice 3D renderings as well. However it goes haywire with any kind of complicated roof. I just use it as a quick and dirty way to get 3D. But if you are worrying about slopes and corners you may find it has aggravating as I do. I’m not familiar with what you can do with Sims 2. I’ve also used Sketchup for 3D drawings and like it better in some ways. You can download a practice version good for 8 hours and see what you think.</p>