Which types of structural framing systems and materials are most commonly used in the US for residences? For office buildings?
What factors determine why these are the most used materials?
Concrete, wood, and steel are used most commonly. Typically wood framing is used in homes and steel and concrete are used for office buildings.
Why do different teams of designers and subcontractors link and share their models during the design process?
What are the advantages of linking models?
Are there any disadvantages to linking models?
How do you think design coordination was done before we started using digital models?
What advantages does doing this coordination digitally have over previous methods?
Digital coordination allows for the software to easily flag and highlight differences between models. In the past, this would have to be done manually on the architectural sheets and these may have been just highlighted between versions.
What strategies can design teams use to find and avoid clashes prior to the start of construction?
What can be done besides sharing the models digitally?
At what point in the project development process should design coordination start?
Is it ever too early?
Yes, I do believe it is possible that there is too early of a time to share a design coordination. While in many instances sharing early is great, when one is too early in the idea iteration, it may not be worth doing the structural work, as these are just ideas at this stage and we don’t want to waste people’s time having to design structural elements when they may not be relevant models.