Advice on 1st "Large" Project

[RevitNinja]

Hello All,

We are in the preliminary phases of our first large Revit project, and I am looking for opinions on how to break up the model.

The project is one single building, 3 stories and a basement. The building is a rectangle with a flat roof and a total SF of 1.6 million.

There will be Structural and MEP further down the line, but my primary concern is the architectural model. What would be the most effective way to divide the work?

[ajayholland]

That's a pretty large footprint but unless it is a hospital or laboratory I would recommend just two files: architecture and structure. Add MEP when appropriate. Worksets will accomodate the needs of multiple users.

~AJH

[RevitNinja]

The footprint is pretty huge, but it is neither hospital or lab. Just an office. Originally I planned to break it into one model for the core and shell and one for the interiors. Its not really complex, just big.

[patricks]

The footprint is pretty huge, but it is neither hospital or lab. Just an office. Originally I planned to break it into one model for the core and shell and one for the interiors. Its not really complex, just big.

Worksets should suit you just fine. No need to break it out into separate models.

Last year we were contracted by a design-build company to complete the drawings for a large manufacturing/warehouse facility. The building was over 660,000 s.f. in size, and my Revit model was only 33 MB. There were also several other buildings on the same campus, all of which I lumped together in a separate file, and that one was only 21 MB.

If the model isn't going to be that complex, just do separate worksets for interior, exterior, structure, etc. If the model starts getting big, you can divide up some worksets even more, and then have users selectively open worksets and just work on those.

[travismv702230]

how much is too much?

I got a project that is in the prliminary stages. But, it is now time for a second person to come in. Not neccessarily because the Revit model is ready for it but because they have nothing else to work on.

It's two buildings. Each building is two levels of below grade parking with 3-4 levels of multi-family housing (stick construction) above it. Right now I have it broken up into a site model and my preliminary massing model. The other person will be working on developing the parking.

Should I just keep all of the building stuff in the same model at the moment and just enable worksets or should I break out the parking from the housing above? I assume that that is the way that I would want it later on (housing in separate model from parking) because the parking in all likelihood would go out in an earlier package than that of the two housing blocks.

[azmz3]

That would be mu advice, would be to break up the below ground, and ground level parking, from the housing model, then use links to combine the files when needed.

I am currently working on a large, 5-Building project, lucky for us, 2 of the buildings are the same, so we have a total of 5 files, one for each building, plus a shell building, and a model for the site. This seems to work out pretty well, especially using shared coordinates, so when I link them all together, they all come in the right place, and that helps out the consultants as well for coordination.

[ajayholland]

how much is too much?

It's two buildings. Each building is two levels of below grade parking with 3-4 levels of multi-family housing (stick construction) above it. Right now I have it broken up into a site model and my preliminary massing model.

Should I just keep all of the building stuff in the same model at the moment and just enable worksets or should I break out the parking from the housing above? I assume that that is the way that I would want it later on (housing in separate model from parking) because the parking in all likelihood would go out in an earlier package than that of the two housing blocks.

Each building is a separate model, but keep the parking and housing together if possible. Perhaps the massing for each is a separate object. As noted in the posts above, with element level borrowing you don't even need a lot of worksets. Some users stay with the original two.

If this is a single set of documents, keep it as a single model. You can manage the packaged deliverables with phasing if you like.

We separate by disciples, but separate models should only be considered when if a model will exceed your hardware's capacity (upgrade) or the project size requires a large team. Six to eight users can easily share a model. As the number of users increases, the STCs can be a problem.

~AJH

[twiceroadsfool]

I dont mind Links as much as most people here, but after having been through a few large projects, my personal "butt dyno" limit on size is 250,000 SF.

Yeah, the models are small, and if its REALLY just an empty shell they never get too bad about model size and performance. But if you start detailing facades, Linking in a Structural model thats built well, and having a decent amount of interior fitout to do as well, thats about the limit in SF i would recommend.

Remember, just because the Hardware can do it, doesnt mean you should.

Besides, you can Workset to the hilt to break stuff up, but that file still WILL be more sluggish than smaller linked files with the Links unloaded. Less STC issues with a large project team and links, too.

Again, just my personal opinion. But if it was me, no way in heck id have .5m SF in one model, let alone 1.6m SF...

[ajayholland]

Possibly the most important point is to plan ahead. A model can be split up down the line, but it's a painful process. And while merging models is relatively easy, merging projects with sheets and views already established is also difficult.

~AJH

[travismv702230]

one additional question. since I'm doing a multi-family project and the units are "groups" how do I deal with that with housing blocks in building A and building B? I would have to potentially edit them twice right? Which I would not want to do. Ideally, we would want the same units "groups" in both buildings. Has anyone dealt with this and have any reccomendations?

I understand about planning ahead. And, I'm trying to stay ahead of the rest of the project team in that respect.

[Scott Womack]

Get the groups created for one housing building. Then keep them as groups, but also write each group out to file. Then major editing on any group is done in the outside file. You should then be able to reload that file as a group, and get the group to update itself, in potentially each of the two housing files.

[sbrown]

So I guess you think this is too much to put in one model? This project has over 1million sf of hotel, parking, restaurant, etc in one model. It is realatively slow, but still very workable. The coordination required on linked models still drives me nuts. Now I could break out the hotel tower from this model and would before going to cd's in it.

[twiceroadsfool]

Its slow but workable and it isnt through CD's yet? Me personally, i think thats too much in one file. But its just one persons opinion.

The Linked File coordination doesnt bother me, since i mainly do exactly what Scott (the other one) mentioned and save all content in the Linked files out to Groups, which i use to move things around and update them. The entire drawing set still stays in one file, etc.

But if youve got the hardware and the patience to have 1m SF in a model, more power to you. :) I have neither, LOL...

[dubaiperth]

We have a team of 10 working across 3 studios on a 60 floor 100,000msq GFA apartment building that has a really complex skin -all double curvature. We have 3 linked files, facade (originally Rhino/Grasshopper), Apartments (all 450 of them all different) and Tower/Podium. We have found the limits of the current software/hardware set-up (32 bit, 4 Gb etc) and are trialling 64 bit/2010 etc

We are looking to separate the podium (again complex with double curved roofs and boat parking!) to have 4 linked files

If you want to leverage the model database you have to have them all in one file but they can be worked on separately- in our case in Dubai/NY and Perth

Harry