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 is to provide a conceptual design for multiple parties of a project. The key stakeholders are the owners, architect, engineers, and general contractors. They need the structural and architectural components of the project to start the fabrication process. They care about the structural features in order to erect the building.
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 advantages of having these families provided is the convenience and having the exact item that is wanted for a specific project. Furthermore, manufacturers are more credible rather than downloading the families on a third party site. The benefit to the designer is having the exact component that you want for a building. Furthermore, there are many items in the Revit library that are generalized and is not exactly what you want.
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?
As a structural engineer, the initial design should include the structural framing and the key architectural features that need to be incorporated into the project. As you continue to iterate, it’s important to include more details such as key architectural features that may cause issues and structural element connections. The key stages are schematic design, design development, and construction documentation. Each stage needs to include as many details as possible and its important to address the comments that are made by the stakeholders as you go through each process.