What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
Building model is a digital version of the building plan that can be shared with multiple people easily. This way everyone involved in the project can be informed of any updates easily and quickly. The stakeholders involved are the client, contractors, subcontractors, architects/designers, authorities, and any other person involved in project in any capacity.
- What do they need?
We need a building to meet the demands of the people who will use it, so a building model is a way to show the client how the building would look like. It helps to understand how the different objects in the building interact with each other, what is necessary in the building and how aesthetically pleasing it would be to their customer.
- What do they care about most?
I think the stakeholder care most about having the best design possible that is efficient, would serve their purpose and doesn’t waste their funds. They need the model to meet the physical requirements and be sustainable.
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?
I think it can be used as advertisement, a marketing tactic that companies use such that they can use the designers and their clients to advertise them. In this way they are showing their products to people who have a high chance of actually purchasing their products. They can also collect the data of the people using their families by having them sign up on their websites before giving access.
- 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?
As a designer if we have access to the manufacturers drawings we can use them to provide more specific details to our project designs. The manufacturers would have more up to date families that are likely using the latest technologies like automatic opening of a door. I can use such families instead of the generic ones to give make my design more aesthetically pleasing and be up to date with the availability or changes to the items.
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?
Manufacturer are more likely to have up to date families which represent the current version of the item. They are going to be more accurate with respect to the actual item. The dimensions, type and properties of material will be more accurate and how they interact with other systems in Revit made by the manufacturer would be different from the online sharing websites. On the other hand the online sharing website will have huge quantity of families in comparison. It would be easier to find options in online sharing website for whatever item you are looking for.