Module 2 - Points to Ponder

What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?

• The primary goals of creating a model is to further understand what you are building. Developers and the people funding the project are the key stakeholders, since they are ones carrying the greatest risk and rewards.
• What do they need?
• They need an accurate model that allows them to put themselves in the building before its actually created.
• What do they care about most?
• They care about the physical and abstract soundness of the building or structure that is being designed and will later be constructed.

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
• Can use generic walls, floors, and roof assemblies
• Preliminary design
• Begin to think about dimensions of the walls, floors and roofs but not exactly necessary to focus on each component
• Reason being that the composition may still depend on the design, an example is the thickness of walls depend on the studs or insulation which are dependent on the type of building
• Design development
• Should have enough information to begin to layer out each composition
• Construction documentation
• Specific analysis of each material used in each composition, including quantitative information, an example would be number of 2x6s on each wall.

What are the advantages of getting the Revit component families (for furniture, equipment, and fittings) directly from the manufacturer versus from an online sharing website like RevitCity.com?

We do not have to guess whether or not the components are accurate or not. Additionally, component families directly from the manufacturer are more likely to have parameters according to their different products.