ArchiCAD Draftsman for German Architecture Projects (ongoing, remote)

We are a German drafting service and we are looking for an ArchiCAD draftsman to produce architectural drawings to German standards, on an ongoing basis.

This is not a one-off gig. We want to build a working relationship with one or two reliable ArchiCAD people and send every suitable ArchiCAD job their way as our order volume grows.

What we do

We prepare drawings for private clients, architects and building companies in Germany. We handle the client, the site information and the full specification. You do the drawing.

Some of our clients work in ArchiCAD themselves and want the project as an ArchiCAD file they can continue working in. That is what this post is about. A typical job: a client gives us a hand sketch, an existing plan or a DWG of a house. We turn that into a complete, dimensioned specification. You build it as a clean ArchiCAD model and produce plans, sections and elevations that look like they came out of a German architecture office.

Typical projects are detached and semi-detached houses and small apartment buildings, often for building permit applications. Scale 1:100, sometimes 1:50, sheets DIN A3 to A1.

What the work involves

• Modelling in ArchiCAD: walls, slabs, roofs, stairs, doors and windows as real elements
• Floor plans, sections and elevations taken from the model, never drawn separately in 2D
• Terrain levels and site plan entries when the client supplies them
• Sometimes continuing an existing ArchiCAD or DWG project from a client
• We do not need renderings or visualisations.

Deliverables for every job

• .pln, saved in the ArchiCAD version we name for the project, with clean layers and layer combinations
• .dwg, exported so that it opens cleanly in AutoCAD, with dimensions as real dimension objects
• .pdf, vector, true to scale, monochrome, with pen weights plotted

What you need

1. Your own commercial ArchiCAD license. This is a must. No educational version, no trial version, and no license that belongs to an employer or another client. If we shortlist you, we will ask for a screenshot of your license information.

2. Work entirely in metric. Metres and centimetres. If your drafting experience is in feet and inches, this job is not for you.

3. Work to German drawing conventions. They differ from Australian, US and UK practice in specific ways. The most important ones:

• Dimension lines are terminated with a 45° oblique tick, never with an arrowhead
• The decimal separator is a comma: 3,99, never 3.99
• Dimensions of one metre and more in metres with two decimals, smaller ones in centimetres; half centimetres are written as a small raised 5
• Openings are dimensioned with the width above the dimension line and the height below it
• Dimension chains run in three parallel rows per façade, from the building outwards: openings, then walls and rooms, then the overall dimension, and every chain has to close exactly
• Levels are given relative to ±0,00 at the finished floor of the ground floor
• Differentiated pen weights: 0,50 mm for cut walls, 0,35 mm for visible edges, 0,25 mm for dimension lines, 0,13 – 0,18 mm for hatching. A drawing where every line has the same weight is not acceptable.
• Hatching on cut building materials at a spacing that actually reads on the printed sheet
• Text in a font that renders German characters (ä ö ü ß) correctly

You do not need to know these conventions by heart. We supply a written brief in English that specifies them. But you need to be the kind of drafter who can follow a specification to the millimetre. That is the core of this job.

4. Build a clean model. Walls joined correctly, no duplicate elements, stories and heights set correctly, sections that match the plans. We check this.

5. Communicate in written English. You do not need to speak German. All German text that appears on the drawing, such as room names, notes and title block, is supplied as ready-to-copy strings.

6. Keep client files confidential. You sign a confidentiality agreement before you see any client files.

What you get from us

We do not send vague requests. Before you start a job you receive:
1. The written brief with every drawing convention specified
2. A dimensionally verified schematic from us, with every dimension chain already closed, a door schedule and a window schedule giving the exact position of every opening from a defined origin point, and the heights the client has given us
3. All site information and the client's files

There are no design decisions for you to make and nothing to guess. If something in our package is ambiguous, you ask and we answer. That is on us, not on you.

Pay

USD 6 – 12 per hour, depending on the quality, speed and experience you show. Paid by the hour for the time you actually work, and paid on time.

How we start

The first assignment is a small paid test task of about two hours: a small part of a house from our schematic, modelled in ArchiCAD with walls, slab and openings, delivered as PLN, DWG and PDF with one dimension chain, one room stamp and one section. Paid at your agreed rate. It tells both of us within a day whether the conventions work out.

On volume, honestly: we are a young business and growing, and ArchiCAD jobs come in less often than our AutoCAD work at the moment. We are not going to promise you a guaranteed number of hours every week, because we cannot. What we can say is that we intend to send every suitable ArchiCAD job to the same person.

Please do NOT apply if

• You do not have your own commercial ArchiCAD license
• You work primarily in feet and inches
• Your portfolio is renderings and visualisations rather than dimensioned working drawings
• You cannot show work you have drawn yourself
• You need a guaranteed full-time workload right now

A straight "this is not my kind of work" costs you nothing and we will remember you positively.

HOW TO APPLY - please read, this d ---------- it

1. Start your message with the word BAUANTRAG. It is German for "building permit application". It tells us you read the post rather than mass-applying. Applications without it are not read.

2. Attach one or two PDFs of ArchiCAD drawings you have drawn yourself: a dimensioned floor plan and a section or elevation of the same building. Add one screenshot of the ArchiCAD model of that project. This is by far the most important part of your application.

We will look at exactly these things in your sample:

• Do the dimension chains close, and are they complete?
• Are the pen weights differentiated, or is everything one weight?
• Is the drawing in metric?
• Do the section and elevations match the floor plan?
• Does the sheet look finished: title block, legend, north arrow, room stamps?

3. Answer these four questions, briefly:

a) Which countries' standards have you drawn to? If you have worked on German, Austrian, Swiss or other European projects, say so and say which office or client. That moves you to the front of the queue.

b) What is your hourly rate for this work, and roughly how many hours would you estimate for a two-storey house of about 150 m², modelled in ArchiCAD from our schematic, with both floor plans at 1:100, one section and four elevations on A3?

c) When can you work? Please list every day from Monday to Sunday with the hours you are usually available, in Philippine time, for example:
Monday: 9:00 – 17:00 (8 hours)
Tuesday: 18:00 – 22:00 (4 hours)
Sunday: not available
Also tell us how quickly you usually reply to messages on those days.

d) Which ArchiCAD version do you use, and is the license a commercial license in your own name? Which other CAD software do you own (AutoCAD, Allplan, Revit)? Tell us the actual versions.

4. Tell us how fast you can usually start once a project comes in.

Thank you for reading this far. We know it is a long post, and that is deliberate. We would rather have five applications from people who fit than fifty from people who do not.

Sander Marquardt
Zeichenpartner, Germany