How much detail should you include about wall, floor and roof composition at different stages?
◦ Conceptual design- I would show the building’s overall form and approximate wall, floor, and roof thicknesses. Detailed material layers are unnecessary at this stage.
◦ Preliminary design - I would identify the main material layers and their approximate thicknesses. I would also establish basic thermal and structural performance targets.
◦ Design development - I would refine the assemblies and coordinate their connections with other building systems. I would verify material properties and select suitable products.
◦ Construction documentation - I would provide the dimensions, specifications, and connection details needed for construction. The drawings should clearly explain how each assembly is installed.
You moved a design from Forma into Revit this week.
◦ What survived intact, and what did you rebuild? The overall building form, floor heights, partitions, balconies, and native stair geometry survived the handoff. I rebuilt the wall, floor, and roof assemblies, defined glazing properties, and corrected the stair and shaft alignment.
◦ What does that tell you about what each tool is for? Forma helps me compare building forms and early environmental performance quickly. Revit lets me develop those ideas into coordinated building elements with material layers and construction information.
◦ Knowing where the handoff lands, what would you do differently in Forma next time? I would check core alignment, simplify oversized window openings, and organize the model more carefully before exporting, and would also record the analysis asumptions so I could make a clearer comparison with Revit.
Many manufacturers provide Revit families for their products.
◦ What is the advantage to the manufacturer of giving them away? Free Revit families make manufacturers’ products easier to incorporate into designs. This increases the likelihood that their products will be specified and purchased.
◦ What is the benefit to you of using them over the generic library families? Manufacturer families provide product-specific dimensions and performance data. They can improve coordination and analysis when I verify that the information is accurate.
◦ At what point does it become appropriate to switch from generic to manufacturer specific? I would switch during design development, once the project’s requirements are established. Generic families remain useful while major design choices are still changing.