Luis won 2nd in the Chief Architect Kitchen/Bath & Interior Design Contest. His experience in real estate led him into floor plan services and 3D visuals.
“I was born in Honduras and moved to New Orleans when I was 10. I have also lived in Miami, Florida where I started architecture school. I took a few design courses there but decided to move to Chicago to finish up my undergrad. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2009. The job market around that time was pretty bad and I was unable to find a job with a firm. I turned to leasing real estate where I was introduced to floor plan services for real estate marketing. I applied to that company with no luck. Since I still had my AutoCAD software from college, I decided to one day go out and purchase a laser measuring device and begin reaching out real estate agents and provide floor plan services. I started my business in 2012 and begin researching other types of software and about a year later I came across Home Designer Architectural. With this software, I was able to expedite my workflow by simply creating architectural elements and dropping them in place. I currently use a Surface tablet and do most of my work on site.
“A few years later I had a client ask me if I could do 3D design. I created a few drawings for him but he wanted them to look more realistic so I upgraded to Chief Architect Software. My business is mostly in real estate marketing creating floor plans, but I am slowly getting some projects doing photorealistic renderings for new construction. I am now advertising and promoting my services to builders, developers, and architects. And maybe someday do some actual design for kitchens and baths.
“I did look into other software like SketchUp and Autodesk Revit, but what appealed to me were the extensive libraries of materials and 3D objects that came along with Chief Architect. I also found the online tutorials to be very helpful and useful. I saw how easy it would be to use this software versus the others mentioned before. The ability to import and export models is also great. I’m happy with the ray tracing that is built into the software.”
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