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 are for the architect to articulate his vision of the building for everyone to understand. The user will need to understand the spaces the architect has laid out for them while the builders also need to know how to build the house according to the architect’s vision. For example, the building model’s windows should show the type of window and where it is located so the window installers know how to construct the window. The key stakeholders are the users / owners of the building, the builders, and city officials who must verify the safety of the building from an engineering standpoint and enforce codes that protect safety of inhabitants during emergencies.
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
I think that detail increases as you move through your design stages. The conceptual design has not detail on the layers, thickness, or materials as you are just sketching out concepts of the building. The preliminary stage is where you start to layout the exterior walls and some of the internal walls and rooms. Then you slowly become more detailed in refining the placement of rooms and space throughout the building and increasing in detail like the type of walls and their thickness. The design development and stage should provide the most amount of detail in all of the materials and furniture among other things because by this time all the the structures inside and outside the building have already been set. The roof assemblies can be determined last since it does not apply to the rest of the house directly.
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 advantage of manufacturers providing them directly is that they are definitely accurate that way so there is no complications when building. These manufacturer provided families are mass produced and can be corrected more easily if there are any issues.