What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
- What do they need?
- What do they care about most?
The primary goals of creating a building model are: 1) to communicate and share information across all stakeholders and professions, helping with collaboration and coordination across disciplines; 2) to provide a way to simulate and analyze your design, thus facilitating visualization and understanding of the proposed model. A building model offers a single source with a common format that can be used and accessed by all stakeholders. Models will contain all design information, resulting in improved building designs through greater accuracy, consistency, and documentation.
The key stakeholders include designers, contractors, owners, and building operators. For designers, a building model allows them to share information between different types of designers, resulting in better coordination and communication through the model. For contractors, a building model allows them to visualize what designers are thinking, and ultimately, fewer errors in the field during construction. For owners, a building model provides an understanding of the proposed building, thus helping with decision making. This ties to building operators as well, as it ensures efficient operation for the building's lifetime.
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...)
- 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?
By providing these families, manufacturers can get their products in front of stakeholders and improve their branding and exposure. If you've use one of their doors or windows based on a specific aesthetic or dimensions, you're more likely to actually purchase and use that same product once your building is constructed. This is a significant benefit as the designer because you know the exact product you're purchasing and how it will fit into the exact dimensions and design of your building, versus the families provided in the Revit library, where you might eventually need to change or modify these items in real life.
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?
The advantages of getting the Revit component families directly from the manufacturer versus an online sharing website are that you're using an actual existing product with exact dimensions, design, and specifications that can be carried over and used/purchased after construction, thus improving convenience and the accuracy of your model. Online sharing websites include user-generated items, and may be less reliable and accurate and can't be purchased directly. This could create errors in the model if you can't trust the product dimensions, design, and/or specifications.