What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
The main goals for creating a building model include visualizing the design of a project before construction, organize important information of the building like dimensions and spacing/layout of its components, sharing construction plans virtually, and more. Key stakeholders include the people who are ordering the building project to be constructed as well as the engineers/contractors involved in the project. They are mainly concerned with the feasibility of the design plans and the supervision at different steps the project. Additionally, project managers and investors are responsible for the completion of the project. They are mainly concerned with the financial aspects of the project and making sure that the scope, quality, and risks of the project are in check.
- What do they need?
- What do they care about most?
How much detail should you include in your building model? How do you decide?
As you start, you may start with more general plans and drawings like where the main rooms of the building would be within the larger area as well as where the doors and windows may make sense to be placed. While there is a lot of information that can be included in the building model, the amount of detail incorporated into the building model depends on the intended audience. For example, you may want to present the model in a 3D view for the people ordering the construction project to be built because you want the users of the building to “experience” what the building will look like as realistically as possible. But, for a contractor or engineer, the floor plan and elevation drawings with dimensions labeled accordingly would make more sense so that they can see your vision for the end product as well as the exact parameters they need to fulfill for the project to match that vision.
- As you develop your initial design?
- As you continue to iterate and develop on your design?
- What are the key stages?
- And how much detail should you include at each stage?
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.
The advantage for manufacturers to provide these families is that they may be directly incorporated into the building model and therefore may be incorporated into the final realized building to match the design plan exactly as intended. This can then be profitable for the window and door manufacturers as they can be conveniently integrated into the real project, thereby bridging the digital and physical design choices. The benefit of the designer using those manufacturer-provided families is that it is easy to use and access these loaded families using the Revit software without having to find or generate your own furniture or other components. Instead, you can use premade components to add more detail to your project.
- 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?