Module 4 - Points to Ponder

How much detail should you include about wall, floor and roof composition at different stages?

◦ Conceptual design: Utilize placeholders that only display thicknesses, so that you can quickly outline walls, floors, and roofs

Preliminary design: Separates structures into layers, to be able to visualize how things piece together

◦  Design development: Has the materials and thicknesses that both the customer and engineers came to consensus about

◦  Construction documentation: Include every detail including insulation, air gaps and more so that the contractor know how to build it 

You moved a design from Forma into Revit this week.

◦  What survived intact, and what did you rebuild?

The entire mass of the building stayed intact. I had to remake my labels because for some reason forma did it for some floors but not all. In addition I had to remake my interior walls because they weren’t aligning floor to floor. Also some were missing due to “intersections” and not fully closed.

◦  What does that tell you about what each tool is for?

It tells me that revit is more nit picky and if it gets confused just won’t add it. It tells me models need to be pretty precise which makes sense because these things are presented to stakeholders. Forma allowing me to get away with not fully closed walls tells me it’s more for fast brainstorming.

◦  Knowing where the handoff lands, what would you do differently in Forma next time?

There was a lot of times in forma where I noticed a wall didn’t fully close and was like I’ll fix it later, but forgot to, so for text time I would just attempt to do it at the moment or at least before transferring it to revit.

Many manufacturers provide Revit families for their products.

◦  What is the advantage to the manufacturer of giving them away?

The advantage of manufacturers giving Revit families away is that it makes sure their product is ingrained in the revit design from the beginning of the project. Furthermore, architects would rather utilize pre made models to not waste time and typically things included in the beginning are likely to stay in the final model increasing the chances of the contractor buying the manufacturer's product. 

◦  What is the benefit to you of using them over the generic library families?

The benefit of using manufacturers' Revit families is that they are a realistic representation of what will actually be included in the project and even include the properties of the product. This is better than using generic library families because they act as  placeholders and you would have to manually input everything. 

◦  At what point does it become appropriate to switch from generic to manufacturer specific?

I would say it is appropriate once every has given it the thumbs up like the customer, engineers, superintendents, etc

The core is located early and moved rarely.

◦  Why does it get fixed before most of the building?

◦  What are the consequences of a core that does not stack vertically?

◦  What did locating the core force you to change about your Week 3 layout?

Your Insight result did not match your Forma result.

◦  What accounts for the difference?

◦  Which number would you show a client, and how would you explain the gap?

◦  Does a more detailed model automatically produce a more trustworthy prediction?