Development Standards for Revit

[Cleo]

I am trying to update our process checklists so that my team can understand what does "schematic design" or "design development" mean when it comes to a Revit model. Our old checklist had a sheet by sheet list and I started to update that but it just doesn't make any sense...maybe it should be more categories of objects...i.e. defining level of detail for wall, window door....anyone out there have any ideas or good systems that are working?
thanks

[Local Revit Guru]

Yes I think you are on the right track when you talk about level of detail. One of the great things that Revit does is it's inbuilt definitions of what to show in what type of view.
Ie. in families it might be the properties of the object, what's turned on in plan, section, elevation etc. This gives the ability to customise the visible properties of objects per view type!

OK. So I may be telling you how to suck eggs but I'm not sure about your level of experience?

In Australia our standards of drawings are thus: Schematic plans have walls blackened in, windows without cut profiles, amongst other things. This is probably world wide I imagine.

So for schematic plans, have the View Properties set to COARSE and make sure that the properties of all wall types in the project have a COARSE FILL COLOUR setting of SOLID and then pick the fill colour (black/grey)! This will ensure that the drawings read as undefined materials showing a nominal wall type!

You can go to great lengths with setting up VIEW TEMPLATES (for all types of views) to predefine & then apply standards for Schematic through to construction documentation! VIEW>CREATE VIEW TEMPLATE!
& you can go even further if you have the set up time availible to you. & you could place acurate profiles in objects, such as window frames and door frames of families, & set them up to only show in views of a certain scale/detail. For example you prob. only want to see aluminium windowhead framing profiles in a sectional detail of no less than 1:20 or 1:10! It's possible to do this by setting up the family correctly & this then gives an acurate level of pre-determied detail!

I hope this helps! Standards are unfortunately very much left up to the user but I suppose that's necessary - whilst it could be improved but then Nothing that Revit does out of the box is actually very impressive. I'd like to know when they will provide some sort of real looking family contect beyond blocky looking geometries for furniture & the like. But then presentation is not Revit's Strong point!

[Cleo]

Thanks for the input. I will definitely use that in terms of presentation but what I am trying to get at is the question "how developed is the model". If I can define that at least roughly then different people working on different projects all know what they are supposed to be delivering. So at the end of schematic for instance, the roof plane is modeled but doesn't necessarily have its fascia, or the window is in there as a place holder but the mullions aren't adjusted for actual product selection. Does that make any sense? Anyone have any thoughts?
thanks

[Local Revit Guru]

Well I think that's one thing you'll have to work out for yourself. My office is about to do the same thing. It's quite importatnt to work out how far you will take a building's details in each stage but I think what you have to consider beyond the building's details is what you want to extract from a schematic design. (ie. forget about how many mullions in a window - the correctness of that is not important - at the end of the day if you have proficient staff the speed at which they can put detail into a design is suprisingly fast although it will vary from person to person). The key is what you want to get out of it at each stage.

At the early stages, are you modelling to get data out of it or form - set a priority or have an option for each, or for both at the same time! If you want data, then form doesn't matter as much because you're dealing with square metres or square feet - or with volumes!
If you want form then you don't need to worry about room/area tags or even door sizes for that matter. But the fact is at the schematic stage you probably do want to extract volume data from it to inform the design!

The fact is, the set up time should be spent on the template's, the families, the details, groups and so on so that you can load them in with minimum effort so that you get a fluid design process! Yes forget about facsias and mullions and floor mats at that early stage unless you are doing a presentation model. It really depends on the scale of your project & the processes of your designing.

Did i say too much already?

[Cleo]

This was quite helpful. I had been thinking of this task as something universal but it really isn't. Your recommendation that I define the intent of "schematic design" then go from there is excellent. Thank you. Then if I combine that with setting up the template with sheets for each deliverable that control the level of detail that will be viewed (thanks for that idea from the earlier post) I think I am as close as I am going to get to "standards".

Thanks to all.

[Michelle Gibson]

As a partner, I am interested in this thread as we are struggling with how to have staff fill in their time sheets while working on a project in Revit. Our fee billing is based on phase of work, but Revit makes it more difficult to clearly define how far along we are. There is another factor out there that further muddies the water in that the traditional fee billing of 12.5% schematic design, 12.5% design development, 50% contract documents, 5% tender and 20% administration is difficult to pin down when you have to make so many design decisions before you can really say you are into working drawings.

If there is anyone out there that has defined a "cut off" in Revit whereby you can say "I'm finished schematic design phase" and onto the next one, that would be helpful.

thanks in advance.

[robert.manna]

traditional fee billing of 12.5% schematic design, 12.5% design development, 50% contract documents, 5% tender and 20% administration

What we are finding, as we look to the future, based on our expereince so far, this model just doesn't work. With BIM in general (doesn't matter what tool you're using) more and more decisions are front loaded, where they can easily be changed without a huge construction cost impact. Thus, if you are having to make decisions earlier, it doesn't make since to bill under old models. Furthermore, the old model was based on the deliverable, documents (hardcopy or electronic). BIM can certainley produce a set of documents, and make you more effcient at doing so, however if that is all you want out of it, you might as well just invest in really good CAD standards. However, if you want to leverage the "Information" part of BIM, the value is no longer in just a set of documents delivered at the end of CD's, because there is no way for a set of documents to fully convey what is in a good BIM model. Therefore the value shifts not only from when decisions are being made, but from where the value really is, the value is no longer in a set of 2D documents, it is in your BIM model, and how do you bill for that? Alliance contracting down under , has some interesting possibiliites, our CEO is hoping to adopt some of that in the coming years, but there are huge ramifications on the practice as whole if you really consider what Building Information Management (I mean Modeling) can do for you. Legal, HR, staffing, design practice, etc, etc, etc.

For instance, staffing, the nuts and bolts of putting together a good Revit BIM model is in the families. In a 600 person firm, how do you train 75% of your staff on the theory and practice of creating good families that add to the BIM, and follow some sort of standards/best practices, so that you're all talking the same language, and not wasting time and effort?

Cheers,
-R

[Cleo]

re: billing and revit
I am also a partner and was coming at this from the same angle you are. I am waiting (and tracking) through our first few projects to see how it all comes out but one short term change that we have made is to add a phase called "visioning" before schematic. This is a hand drawn phase that lets us sort out some of the quick pre-revit decisions. Revit is so intensive in its early decision making but looks "finished" to the client - we were having a really hard time managing hours vs client expectations and driving the schedule of early decisions. Then once we have general agreement on a hand-sketch direction....often actually created by sketching over an in progress revit model that the client doesn't see...we move into schematic design. Visioning plus Schematic design run about 30=40% of fees...don't know if that works yet, but we are testing.
Another problem has actually come in training our staff to get through DD - their tendancy is to build the entire model accurately (of course) but on some projects and in some cases, I don't need the foundation to be built under the whole building, just under the portion where the wall section cuts through...I know I know, this isn't good BIM practice but it does impact profitability for our architectural practice!
Good luck and let me know what you figure out.

[robert.manna]

re: billing and revit
Another problem has actually come in training our staff to get through DD - their tendancy is to build the entire model accurately (of course) but on some projects and in some cases, I don't need the foundation to be built under the whole building, just under the portion where the wall section cuts through...I know I know, this isn't good BIM practice but it does impact profitability for our architectural practice!

Your dang right that that isn't good BIM practice!

Obviously, based on my previous post I'm a firm beleiver in changing the practice of architecture from the ground up via BIM.

That aside, I'm curious to know if you think you're really loosing that much time and effort on modeling the whole foundation versus one part? Or is it possible that you're loosing the time somewhere else?

Furthermore I notice that you said this "training our staff to get through DD" does this mean that in "CD" you do expect them to build the whole foundation? If so, this makes very little sense to me. By the time you are in "CD" the ability to make changes without huge cost impacts has generally decreased greatly. Whereas in DD or even SD, generally the ability to make considerable change has less of a cost impact. Therefore its in your interest to understand more about the building, rather than less.

Perhaps the issue is, to train your staff on how much detail to put into the whole foundation, versus not modeling the entire thing. At the very least if you have "place holders" you can always up-date them to something more accurate in "CD".

Personally I continue to question the relevancy of these "phases" as we define them now. Perhaps the name will change, but we need to consider alternate means of evauluating them.

I do like the "visioning" idea, not so fond of the title, we have something similiar, generally called "pre-design" but alot of "design" tends to fall under that heading.

-R