What are the primary goals of creating a building model? Who are the key stakeholders?
How much detail should you include in your building model? How do you decide?
- As the initial design of the model is being developed the focus should be primarily on getting your conceptual images into the design. Specifics aren’t very important at this point in the process as you’re a just trying to get a feel for what the final model will look like. This is where collaborators can work together the get the just of the project at hand. Consumers should be given brief glimpses at this stage
- As you continue to develop your design the focus should shift to fine tuning the model and in the later half of this stage shift to developing more specific and defined measurements and features. This is where collaborators agree and the details of the design. Consumers should begin to be shown more in depth details of what they are getting
- In the final stage, just before the final design is presented to the consumer and hopefully manufacturer with exact details and sections of the design as at this point in the process the focus will shift to bringing the design to life.
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?
Many door and window manufacturers provide Revit families for doors and windows that you can specify for your building design.
It may not be free for them to create them but in the process of creating a component family they create a direct route for the purchase of a specified product. This makes it much simpler for manufacturers as there will now be less custom-made demands and they will save a lot of money by having pre-determined orders.
The benefit to the designer is that their models will be being made with real products that do not require custom design. This means that their models will be more accurate and won’t have to be edited to fit to different door frames, windows, etc.
What are the advantages of getting the Revit component families (for furniture, equipment, and fittings) directly from the manufacturer versus from an online sharing website like RevitCity.com?
Getting component families directly from the manufacturer versus from an online sharing website allows you to insert already made and buyable components: the manufacturer ship the exact components of the model this way. If you were to get component families from an online sharing website there is no guarantee that you can find a manufacturer with these exact products and you may now have to edit your model to make accommodations for the products that you do find. This is just one of many problems. Getting component families directly from the manufacturer saves a lot of unnecessary intermediary steps.