What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
◦ What does each of them need from the model?
◦ What do they care about most, and where do those priorities conflict?
A drawing is a picture of a building. A model is a description of one.
◦ What questions can you ask a model that you cannot ask a drawing?
You can ask what’s behind the building or how far/deep back or forward the element/component/building goes. Technically multiple drawings can provide this info, but one model vs one drawing has a large difference in the info it shares. You can probably get volume and weights from models but not drawings.
◦ Are there things a drawing still communicates better? Give an example.
Drawings communicate dimensions more clearly. You know what they are parallel and orthogonal too instantly. In models they might be slightly angled and you have to be careful of what is being dimensioned.
This course splits the work across Forma, Revit and Forma Data Management.
◦ What is gained by using a different tool for concept, documentation and coordination?
◦ What tends to get lost in the handoffs between them?
◦ Who on a real project team is responsible for making sure nothing is lost?
Where should a building model actually live?
◦ What are the practical consequences of a model living on one person's laptop?
If a model lives in a personal laptop, they must constantly share the latest version with other people or risk other people referencing outdated information. This leads to the delays between work because the information must be manually sent. if you have a partner or team working on the model, it becomes even more inefficient.
◦ What changes when the model lives in the cloud, for the designer and for everyone else?
When the model lives in the cloud, everyone sees the most up to date model at all times. It removes all risk of referencing outdated models and allows you to collaborate on models quickly. It’s even possible to let people work on the model at the same time without accidently modifying the same elements using a feature called worksharing.
You will make hundreds of modeling decisions this quarter.
◦ Which ones are worth being slow and careful about?
The ones worth being slow and careful about are dimensions that cannot be parametrized because you will have to manually update it later if it’s wrong. If a dimension affects other dimensions that also suggests the decision should be done carefully or else you’ll have multiple dimensions to fix. This means early decisions like the width and length of a building are important because they constrain everything else to fit within those dimensions.
◦ Which are worth being fast about, accepting that you may redo them?
Decisions like making the wall reach the ceiling can be done quickly. Final details that don’t affect other parts of the model can also be done quickly.
◦ How would you tell the difference before you have made the mistake?
You just need to think about the consequences of making a mistake for the modeling decision you are working on.