Like I said, I started the AA (Arch Academy) late last year, after finishing Blender Cookie's Mastering Modeling workshop, and really pushing my overall knowledge of CG art. Once I began the Academy, the first course was an introduction to architecture, where I was amazed by the amount of thought and work that was put into the basics and fundamentals of architecture, and color overall.
Once I was done with the introduction, it was time to move on to a "module", or section where a series of tutorials were presented teaching me how to create a particular architectural photo-realistic scene in Blender. Each of these modules cover a different type of scene, a kitchen, lounge, bathroom, European and Colonial styles, just to name a few. While there is some modeling involved of course, a lot of different "assets" are provided to students, so you can focus your time on the composition, material creation, and lighting; this is what the Academy is all about.
Before talking about the Academy, there are extra Academy-only tutorials offered to students, covering different furniture, as well as foliage. For those who pay the extra money, there is also a large collection of textures, and assets to use for anything and everything. So if you feel that an entire house design could be overwhelming, do not worry.
Moving into the later modules, some great Blender modeling tricks and methods were presented for creating designs thought to be impossible, or extremely hard to produce. It was very nice to see various modifiers and operators used, that are normally ignored or not used to their full potential. Adding to that, this is all done in Blender 2.67-2.69, and you'll see Andrew's version number go up as each module week passes.
The one thing that I absolutely love about the Academy, is Andrew's teaching style. His workflow is based on speed, and you will find yourself constantly pausing the videos to keep up, but as you progress, you may find yourself doing some things faster, as you already know what to do, as he rambles on about South Korea, and the craziness in his life. This is extremely helpful when going through a long tutorial module, reminding you that your sanity is out there somewhere.
As you continue to watch his videos, you will hear him complain about Blender's "finicky" design, but I believe it's just a way to challenge people to play with different features to learn them by experimenting. You will see in the comments of these videos where almost every student has found a better way to work with whatever was complained about, and how to use it. I sincerely believe this is his way of pushing pupils with a charismatic attitude. Being in the same situation, I found myself really working to learn these same operators, and in turn they have become some of my favorites in my Blender repertoire.
In conclusion, I've found this to be an extremely wise investment. While I could have started this as a Blender beginner, I believe the Mastering Modeling workshop helped me focus on the more important aspects provided in the Academy. At the same time, the Academy pushed me over the edge from intermediate to advanced when it came to Blender. Each module I learned something new, making me want to understand everything completely.
Note: I do recommend, is to make sure you have a good CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a fairly decent nVidia GPU (780 or better) to take the course with, or at least access to some low-cost render farms like RenderPump, Render Street). You may need your CPU to render some of the final renders, requiring up to 10GB of memory. Using all AMD when I started, this was another reason it took me so long to finally come back to the Academy after my hiatus, with renders that took no less than 1.5 hours for final renders. Don't let this discourage you though, you are learning some high-end "Blending".
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