What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
◦ What does each of them need from the model?
The goal of a building model is to design, analyze, and coordinate a building digitally so problems are found and decisions are made before construction. It also lets the team communicate more clearly and efficiently than drawings alone. The key stakeholders are the engineers, construction team, and customers.
◦ What do they care about most, and where do those priorities conflict?
Engineers care most about performance and safety, the construction team cares about building it efficiently and on schedule, and the customers care about cost and getting a building that meets their needs. These priorities conflict when a design that performs better or has more features costs more or is harder and slower to build.
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?
A model can answer questions about the building's data, not just how it looks. You can ask how many doors are on a floor, how much concrete the building needs, what the R-value of a wall is, how much sunlight a room gets, or whether a duct runs into a beam. A drawing only shows what someone chose to draw, so you'd have to measure or count those things by hand.
◦ Are there things a drawing still communicates better? Give an example.
Drawings can be good for rapid concepts. It can take time to build a model so when you are initially ideating a drawing can be great. Like if you are designing something for a customer and can quickly sketch different outlines of a house.
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?
Only that person can work on it, so everyone else has to wait for files to be emailed or uploaded. That leads to outdated versions, conflicting copies, and the risk of losing work if the laptop breaks or the person leaves the project.
◦ What changes when the model lives in the cloud, for the designer and for everyone else?
The designer can work from anywhere and has version history to fall back on, but has to follow shared standards and be more careful, since others see their changes. Everyone else gets access to the latest model, so they can review, comment, and coordinate in real time instead of waiting on files.
You will make hundreds of modeling decisions this quarter.
◦ Which ones are worth being slow and careful about?
◦ Which are worth being fast about, accepting that you may redo them?
◦ How would you tell the difference before you have made the mistake?