Tips for Architects

Conceptboard is a virtual whiteboard toolkit used by the School of Architecture for effective online visual collaboration with Faculty and Students. Conceptboard allows students and faculty to sketch, create collages, markup files, and participate in virtual pin-ups and reviews.

It also allows students and lecturers to track their design process, the history of changes made (by individuals or groups) and manage their design teams to make a more effective only learning environment.  It is easy to share and has a plethora of features which may be used to kick-start your virtual design process.

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Table of Contents

Get Started

Conceptboard is pretty easy to navigate.

If you are using concept board on a laptop or computer device, it is best is  recommended that you use a mouse or keyboard to navigate the platform using a mouse.  Trackpads Track-pads are not as effective as navigation tools within this platform, as it causes slight glitches and errors in selection, however if you don't have a mouse or keyboard available, it can be used.  When using a mouse, Left and right click, scroll and zoom will give you much of the same functionalities that you are used to in other architectural design software.  If you are using a Tablet, spread your fingers to zoom and use two fingers to move.  Using a tablet will also give you the ability to create quick free form sketches.

How to navigate on a Tabletcomputer

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How to navigate on a computer

Tips for Mac Users

Forget Tablet

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Forgot to save?!

Conceptboard will autosave auto save your work as at the last point you logged off even if you forgot to save it as assign a particular file name.  Just go to your Project Boards page and your last opened file will appear.

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Create Quick Collages

Drag & Drop

You may drag and drop a “png” and “jpeg” images to create quick, simple and effective collages.  Use this tool to effectively demonstrate your ideas to your lecturers in the initial stages of the design project.

Tip: Kathleen loves when students produce these types of drawings for her charrettes in Research class!

Sketching or Scribbling

Scan your hand drawings or develop your sketches from scratch within Conceptboard.  This feature is most effective when done with a Tablet or wide screen phone device with a designated pen feature.

Share your board

From within a board, you can click the blue ‘Share board’ button located in the upper right-hand corner of the board toolbar. You can enter an email or select a user from the drop-down menu. Separate multiple emails addresses with a comma. Each time you share the board this way, an email notification is sent to the user.

Collaborate with other Students & Professors

Students may use concept board to manage their design teams more effectively.  Conceptboard allows you to make comments on a drawing, @ mention someone (like on twitter or Instagram), create an assign tasks for your team members, in addition to letting them know when you have completed an assigned task.   Professors may use tools such as scribble and draw to effectively communicate potential updates and critiques.

Streamline your Design Process & Research

Streamline your design process and research using predesigned templates or building blocks.  Highlight important information that may become critical aspects of your design process in the future using one or several visual formats available within Conceptboard. 

PRO TIP:  You can use these templates as a basis for creating charrettes and in Kathleen’s research class.  It will help you to visually arrange your content in a simple, effective and clear way.  It also lessens the workload when its time to submit this data for your course!

Are you unorganized? Let’s fix it!

Sections are a great way to organize your boards. You can use them to:

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• Shapes,
• Sticky notes, or
• Image Files

Organizing your Studio Boards

When it’s time for your Final Studio Crit or Virtual Presentation you may asked to organize your studio board into a new Concept Board that will be used for that specific review or virtual meeting.  Use the align or grid tool feature to quickly organize Final Studio presentations.

Embedding animations or videos

You can embed a video or animation by dragging and dropping the content onto the board, much like you would do an image OR if you have internet content to that you would like to share, you can copy the website link from websites like YouTube or Vimeo.

Go to the Insert Tab > Select Embed Audio/Video > Paste the Link > Resize to your Liking

Starting a Zoom Meeting

You may start an audio or video zoom meeting within Conceptboard by clicking on the phone icon at the top right corner where your picture is located.  If someone has already started a meeting, you may join by clicking the conference button under the video / audio stream.

Tips for Effective Zoom Meetings

Prepare: Organize your Studio boards

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If you need to change moderators during the meeting, Click on the live user icon in the upper right corner and choose "Make moderator". 

 Watch these tutorials of an Architecture Student using Conceptboard

Watch this tutorial of architecture student using different elements of Conceptboard.