What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
I think the primary goal are the followings:
(1) The model helps us to visualize the system according to the actual situation or according to the style we need.
(2) The model allows us to specify the structure or behavior of the system.
(3) The model gives a template to guide us in constructing the system.
(4) The model documents the decisions we make.
Key stakeholders consists of the followings:
(1) Building designers
(2) House owners, such as clients and users
(3) Constructors
(4) Supervisors, reviewers and approvers.
What do they need:
They need the information of the buildings. That is why we learn BIM (Building Information Modeling).
What do they care about most:
Different people pay different attention to the model. For example, designers pay more attention to the stability of the structure, constructors pay more attention to the construction cost of the model, and clients pay more attention to the comfort of the house, etc. For different people, we have to adopt different ways of emphasizing when introducing the advantages of the model.
How much detail should you include in your building model? How do you decide?
I think the key stages includes the followings:
(1) Goal setting stage (conceptual design stage in Question 3)
(2) Preliminary design stage
(3) Detail design stage
(4) Construction stage
(5) Operation and maintenance stage
Before performing the model building, we must point out the goals that BIM hopes to achieve when building the model.
In the preliminary stage of the design of the building model, we should design the building model in a simple volume, roughly showing the appearance of the building and internal space pattern, for the clients to understand our design concept. In order to attract customers, we can add some application analysis such as building performance analysis, surrounding landscape simulation, etc.
After doing that, we should revise the model and complete the general detailed components of the building (e.g., dimensions of walls and columns), drawings description, including the interior details of the building, and the electromechanical components.
When the building design plan is confirmed, the focus of building model is to annotate more detailed information of the building, such as component size, relative position and other parameters, so that on-site constructors can assemble these to the correct position. We should also add some other parts, such as cost estimation, suspension assembly simulation, interior design display of pre-sale houses, etc.
In operation and maintenance stage, the amount of information in the building model has reached a certain level. The model can simulate operating conditions or be used in the building operation and maintenance phase, such as connecting equipment and sensing technology for equipment management, asset management, or other such as escape route simulation and pre-planning for the refurbishment of buildings,
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?
In conceptual design process, we need to clarify the structural form and layout of the building, which requires us to mention the basic information of wall, floor and roof, such as approximate spatial distribution, quantity and type. In preliminary design and development design processes, we should continue to refine and optimize design parameters of wall, floor and roof, which ensure the stability of the structure. In construction stage, we can make reasonable adjustments according to the construction situation.
Many door and window manufacturers provide Revit families for doors and windows that you can specify for your building design.
Advantage to manufacturers:
Promote their products. After looking at the sample room/building, customers are more inclined to buy the furniture or other items shown in the image.
Advantage to designers:
(1) Save modeling time. Sometimes the components we designed may not be found in Revit Library. So we need to build the component model by ourselves.
(2) Build more realistic modeling using realistic Revit Family.
Which one is better:
I think the model is used to provide model information to others. No matter the model is exquisite or not, other people can understand it, so I think both are acceptable and manufacturers-provided families has no significant advantages over designers -provided families.