What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
The primary goal of creating a building model is to communicate effectively with clients and all designers and builders who work to create buildings. Key stakeholders are the owners, design team, construction team and subcontractors. They all need a way to communicate and coordinate the work their individual teams do with the larger multidisciplinary task force. They all care about achieving their shared and individual goals, while coming in under budget, and saving as much time as possible in doing so.
How much detail should you include in your building model? How do you decide?
How much detail one includes in a building model depends on the purpose of making the model; some models are created to give a high-level concept, and not much detail is needed in these cases. Where models are presented to contractors, builders, or even used in any official documentation (documents sent to the city for permits, and so on), then the models should be detailed.
- As you develop your initial design?
Not much! Here it's very high-level, and all the small things are likely to change anyway
- As you continue to iterate and develop on your design?
To a small extent - you want to be more precise as you solidify your design, but also expect things to be a little untidy
- What are the key stages?
Preliminary design, first and second iteration, third iteration, and then there'll be a stage where there's a design freeze (no more changes to the design can be made)
- And how much detail should you include at each stage?
Up until the second iteration I'd say the detail should be minimal. By the second iteration we'll need to really fine-tune the detail, and by the design freeze, the details should all be figured out.
How much detail should you include about the composition (layers, materials, thicknesses) of your wall, floor, and roof assemblies at different stages of your design process?
- Conceptual design
- Preliminary design
- Design development
- Construction documentation
Many door and window manufacturers provide Revit families for doors and windows that you can specify for your building design.
- What is the advantage to manufacturers for providing these families? (it's not free to create and provide them...)
If architects and designers use a certain detail in their models, it's more likely to be built - this is almost like advertising.
- What is the benefit to you as the designer of using these manufacturer-provided families? Is there an advantage to using them versus the families provided in the Revit library?
It's easier to use manufacturer-provided families because you don't have to model them yourself, and you already have a sense of where to get these models - so it saves you as a designer a lot of time