What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
The key stakeholders are the designers, construction team, and the people that will occupy the build. The primary goal of creating a building model is implementing the desired functionality of the build, in our example it is to see how you can make a research center efficient and seamless to complete their task.
How much detail should you include in your building model? How do you decide?
You should include as much detail as you need to be able to clearly create a layout and functional process for carrying out the build. The floor plan should have correct measurements and room layouts in order to make it easier and make more sense.
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...)
- 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?
The advantage for these manufacturers is that when we work with their doors and windows in the design and make our builds compatible with their product, it makes it more likely that if that model is made in real life that the constructors will use their doors and windows. The benefit for the designer to use these provided families is that it allows you to implement real world products into the model, making it closer to the actual building that it will make.