Chris Black Architectural Designer, Structural Engineer

Clubhouse presentation drawing for a new 500+ unit residential complex to be built
circa 1998­2000, north of Denver, contributing to the "Californication" (urban sprawl)
of the Colorado Front Range Region. ("New Urbanism" is a hard sell out here in the wild, wild west.)

After taking a Mac for a "Test Drive" in late 1984, sitting up all night playing with this marvelous new computer, and breaking a promise I made to myself to never, ever, again touch a computer for as long as I lived (still reeling from countless hours sitting in the college computer center writing programs in Fortran IV, typing out thousands of lines of code on card punch machines, wasting even more cards due to typo/syntax errors, waiting for the "batch process" 360 mainframe to be run, discovering I needed to debug further, etc.), I knew that my life and opinion of computers would soon change forever. About a year later I bought my first Mac... a "Fat Mac" 512K machine.

From that time onward, I used my Mac primarily as a word processor, even though I bought MacDraw, MacDraft, MiniCad, PowerDraw, TurboCad, Vellum 3D... and a few other packages I can't now remember. Even though I wanted to do CAD with a Mac for years and years, I still designed and drafted manually, using every excuse in the book for delaying my serious entry into CAD. In late 1993 I decided to go whole hog, went hugely into debt, retired my old Mac (by this time a Classic II) and bought a new high-end Mac system, and started doing CAD seriously. I found that I had to get rid of virtually all my old drafting tools/tables, etc., for me to force myself into a new mode of thinking. And I've never looked back.

Having played around for years with many different CAD packages out there available for the Mac, it was a no-brainer to choose PowerDraw as my primary CAD package. It was then (and still is, currently up to PowerCADD 4.0) by far the best 2D CAD package there is, bar none. Alfred Scott's WildTools package adds even more truly nifty tools, such that doing CAD is a real joy. As some folks know, I still bitch and moan about a few things, but the PowerCADD/WildTools combo cannot be beat. Today I produce drawings faster (marginally), and better (significantly) than I ever did the old fashioned way.

Chris Black

Chris Black

Christopher Rae Black, a Hoosier born and bred in "The Region" (Northwest Indiana), earned his undergraduate engineering degree (B.S.C.E.) at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1977, spent an additional two years towards an M.Arch. degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, before being expelled, started his career at Plumb, Tuckett & Associates, Inc., in Merrillville, Indiana, and moved to Denver, Colorado, at the end of 1984 to start his own professional design firm, Black, Atwood & Associates, Inc., where he still practices to this day. Mr. Black is a licensed professional engineer (P.E.) in four states, almost passed the A.R.E. in 1985 (still a sore subject with him) and provides architectural design and structural engineering services in the private sector, primarily in the state of Colorado.

Black, Atwood & Associates, Inc., 1581 Ogden Street, Denver, Colorado 80218 (303) 830-1459 Voice (303) 831-4998 Fax-paper (303) 861-4718 Fax­modem. Email: ChrisBlack@aol.com (preferred) or ChrisBlack@macconnect.com

Heartpace 2000 cardiovascular rehabilitation center (a fancy phrase for a heart doctor's
office with gymnasium and locker rooms within; drawings produced manually,
photos taken a week before grand opening)

More drawings by Chris Black

Main Level Floor Plan/Site Plan of Clubhouse seen above.

Exterior Elevations of a proposed Administration/Locker Room facility to be
located immediately adjacent to a new deep shaft soda ash mine in Wyoming.

Main Level Floor Plan of the above Administration/Locker Room facility

Interior Tenant Finish plan for an existing steakhouse being
converted into a Mexican food restaurant for a local restaurant chain

New exterior courtyard/retaining wall/security barrier for the above Tenant Finish;
this is the first use of color in any of my drawings, prompted by the purchasing of a color DesignJet 350C printer.