What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
The key stakeholders are the customer and the team working on the building. The customer needs to be heard and have their requests met as best as possible. They care most about having their requests fulfilled and having a model that can clearly show and guarantee this. The construction team needs a clear plan for what they're supposed to be doing, and respect for their budget.
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?
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...)
- Without the manufacturer's families right there, a designer may not have otherwise considered using that manufacturer. This way, a designer can get a better idea of how the manufacturer's product will fit the model, and if they like it a lot that particular product will be specified for the real-life build. And now the customer is more familiar with the manufacturer.
- 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 manufacturer-provided families may provide more accuracy, as the objects were made to represent specific real world items - rather than a generalized placeholder. This lets the designer better plan measurements and visuals.
What are the advantages of getting the Revit component families (for furniture, equipment, and fittings) directly from the manufacturer versus from an online sharing website like RevitCity.com?
You're more likely to get a more realistic object model straight from the manufacturer, as the manufacturer itself best knows exactly how everything is actually made. This way, your model can translate better to the real build. The component families on an online sharing website can be well-done, but you can't know for sure what were just guesses and estimations because they could have been made by anyone.