What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
- What do they need?
The goal of building a model is to satisfy the consumer. The designer needs an idea of what the consumer wants, and a plan to fulfill those needs. From there they need to find the most cost-effective design, while still considering the wants of the consumer. The designer should also stay in budget, which just creates another obstacle.
- What do they care about most?
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?
You should include as much detail as possible to where you can still understand everything about the design. You should always have more and then delete ideas if needed rather than trying to add something that could potentially ruin the flow of the entire design. Don't add too much detail to the point where so much is going on that it's hard to comprehend.
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...)
- 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?
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?
A huge advantage for developers that these families provide is the ability to make the model look as realistic as possible. Having the exact fitting, furniture, equipment, etc. allows the design to resemble the actual construction as much as possible. Having these components straight from the manufacturer is extremely useful because it gives you the exact dimensions to make the design work as a whole.