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 goals for creating a building model would be to convey information about the building in an efficient but thorough manner. That the designer, builder, and client are all on the same page. The key stake holders are the designer, construction manager, and client. They are about about how the building will look and function in the end according to their needs and specifics.
How much detail should you include in your building model? How do you decide?
- 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?
The amount of details depends on which stage of the project you are on. I think as you continue to iterate and and develop the design you can start adding more details such as decorations, wall, and floor details. But if you're at the brainstorming stage you want to keep it simple with just the walls, floors, rooms, and big furniture. But there also needs to be a stopping point to how much detail you can add. If it no longer serves an informational or design purpose then that is the stopping point.
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...)
For the manufacturer to provide these families, there is a chance that they are incorporated into the actual building later on. Without those families, there is a missed opportunity for advertisement of their products.
- 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?
For the designer it is one less decision to make in the future because the specific type of doors and windows were already chosen. Instead of using generic families, you can see how the specific family would look and function in the building. You don't know how the final building will look like until it is actually built, but with this there smaller chance of uncertainty.