Archicad — 27

Would you like a step-by-step guide on any specific feature (e.g., Visual Painter or Design Options), or a comparison with Archicad 28 (the latest version as of 2026)?

Elena stared at the screen, her coffee going cold for the third time that morning. She was a principal architect at Veridian Dynamics, a mid-sized firm known for sustainable housing. But today, she wasn't designing a net-zero home. She was wrestling with a dinosaur.

The project was "The Hive," a mixed-use building with a twisting, organic facade. In her old software—let's call it "LegacyCAD"—every curved panel was a nightmare of exploded solids and orphaned lines. She had spent two weeks just trying to get the curtain wall to look right, let alone be accurate for the structural engineer.

Her junior architect, Miguel, poked his head in. "Elena? The contractor just sent over the RFI. They say our section details don't match the 3D model export from last week."

Elena groaned. "Another coordination headache. I'll fix the lines manually."

"Or," Miguel said, sliding a fresh USB drive onto her desk, "we could stop fighting ghosts. IT pushed Archicad 27 to everyone last night. I've been testing it." archicad 27

Elena was skeptical. New software meant a learning curve, lost productivity, and the usual "where did that button go?" frustration. But the deadline for The Hive was in six weeks, and LegacyCAD was failing her.

"Fine," she sighed. "Show me."

Miguel pulled up a chair and opened Archicad 27. The interface looked familiar but cleaner. He opened The Hive’s file—which had taken an hour to import—and clicked on the problematic twisting facade.

"Watch this," he said. He opened the new Curtain Wall tool. But this wasn't the old Curtain Wall. This was Archicad 27's redesigned system.

Instead of manually placing millions of mullions, Miguel right-clicked and selected "Pattern Sequence by Distance." He drew a single curved guide line along the facade's spine. Instantly, the entire grid of panels adjusted itself, compressing and expanding the spacing naturally around the building's tightest curves. Would you like a step-by-step guide on any

Elena leaned forward. "That... that would have taken me three days."

"That's not even the good part," Miguel grinned. He selected a single distorted panel. A new palette appeared: "Direct Element Editing." He grabbed a corner node and pulled. The panel twisted organically, like origami. A real-time overlay showed the exact angle, deformation, and glass stress factors.

"How is the schedule tracking that?" Elena asked, stunned.

"Automatically," Miguel said. He clicked a new icon in the corner—"Open BIM Collaboration"—and a split screen appeared. On the left was their Archicad model. On the right was the structural engineer's Revit file, updated live from the cloud. As Miguel twisted the panel, a yellow highlight appeared on the Revit side, showing the exact steel connection point automatically adjusting.

Elena sat back. Her coffee was still warm. For the first time in weeks, she felt a glimmer of hope, not panic. Elena stared at the screen, her coffee going

If "a piece" means a starting point for a project, Archicad 27 focuses heavily on Classification Systems and Renovation Filters. Here is the recommended structure for a standard AC27 Project Info setup:

While the backend gets a makeover, the frontend receives a suite of "quality of life" improvements that save hours of tedious clicking.

The most notable of these is the Partial Structure Display enhancement. Previously, architects had to manage complex layer combinations to show structural cores versus finishes in their documentation. Archicad 27 introduces a more granular control system, allowing users to filter and display elements based on their structural role (Core, Finish, or Other) directly within the view settings.

This feature alone streamlines the creation of construction documents. An architect can now generate a wall section that clearly distinguishes the structural concrete core from the interior furring and exterior cladding without creating duplicate elements or managing a maze of layers. It is a subtle change on the surface, but it fundamentally changes the speed and accuracy of documentation.

In independent tests comparing Archicad 26 to Archicad 27:

While Archicad 27 is fresh, we can already see the roadmap. Graphisoft is investing heavily in: