County school(s) renovation project

[patricks]

Our firm just got awarded a large contract to do additions and renovations for a county school district. There will be work at 4 different school buildings on 4 different sites spread around the county. We want the entire project in a single CD set, with all buildings using the same construction type, referencing the same details, etc.

Any suggestions on how to set up the project? I've been pushing separate site and building files linked together around here for several months now, but I'm not sure what will be the best way to handle 4 buildings and 4 sites when we need details, schedules, legends, etc. referencing to everything.

[aaronrumple]

Personally, I'd do 4 separate projects and then just "insert from file" the view sheets from one project to another. If you want to issue them as one package, that can be done with sheet numbers. Even if you just work it so the details show up once on a printed sheet - having the details in all the projects will allow you to ref. the view numbers. It will take some carefully sheet organization.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that you'll have a detail on building A referenced also by building B and the detail changes and everyone misses the fact that building B's detail needed to remain the same.

You could do linked files, but that's going to be a lot of in and out of projects as you work. I don't think it will be very fluid.

[patricks]

hmm... sounds like there would have to be a lot of copy/paste going on between projects.

With separate site files this means 8 Revit files total... unless I could just do one site file with all 4 buildings linked in. The buildings are not all on the same campus, so there would be 4 separate toposurfaces in the site file if I did it that way.

[aaronrumple]

hmm... sounds like there would have to be a lot of copy/paste going on between projects.

With separate site files this means 8 Revit files total... unless I could just do one site file with all 4 buildings linked in. The buildings are not all on the same campus, so there would be 4 separate toposurfaces in the site file if I did it that way.

Not copy paste - but Insert views from file.

You develop all the standard details in one file (no model.) These get printed. The standard details are then imported into each project. All that is important when you import is that you have the needed detail views named and on the sheet. What is shown is irrelevant. In fact, you could even wipe the detail drawing from these views in each of the projects to make the files smaller. I've done this sort of "dumb view" referencing when I want to refer to another discipline. It is much like putting in dummy sheets for MEP/Struct/Civil to get the sheet list to work.

You then develop each project using references to the standard details. If you need to update any details, this is done in the detail file. Not the model files. Again - it doesn't matter that the model file has the right stuff shown on the standard details as you won't print that information. Building specific details are developed in each model file.

Are you using the topo for CD's? (We never do...) If it is just for visualization, then the extra files are no big deal. I always export those for rendering separately.

With 4 buildings in one file, you get into a lot of worksets. Also if you are called back on a future job to work on just one of the buildings, you'll have to then separate the 4 buildings anyway. That could be messy. Also you'll run into issues of duplicate grid bubbles and level names.

[patricks]

Actually my boss just worked out a proposed sheet organization, and actually there are EIGHT separate projects and/or locations. :shock:

He's showing a "master" section (A sheets) for all the typical architectural, structural, MP&E stuff, and then sections for each individual "project" (B sheets, C sheets, D sheets, etc).

So Aaron what you're saying is that pretty much any and all details (wall types, foundation details, roof details, etc.) should be drafting views, and then those views/sheets should be inserted into each building model file in order to key them, correct?

I'm also thinking that the smaller projects (classroom additions, etc) with minimal site work should just have the topo in with the building model, and then do separate site models (or a single site model) for the larger projects that will have parking around it, etc. And yes, we do use the topo for CD's. We often do our own Civil drawings around here, but we do it in Revit, as we don't have Civil 3D or anything like that.

[aaronrumple]

Sounds like the A sheets would indeed all be drafting views. (You could even do some model mock-ups or actual 3D elements for wall sections if that was helpful. They just wouldn't be complete buildings.)

B,C,D, etc would either drafting and model with views in each individual project.

With this, there should eb no need to link project unless you are linking topo to each individual project. So you end up with 8 small projects rather than one big project.

[jsteinhauer]

We did a project (in ACAD) several years ago, where we had a '0' set, for all general information on the project. Each building (eight of them) then had it's own set. If there was building specific details, they went into that building's detail sheets. I really liked this approach, because if the general detail changed, I only needed to update the '0' set. Not in eight places.

Does Revit allow you to reference details from other project's within a callout? "See detail 1/0-A-900"

Jeff S.

[jarosa]

From my limited experience, every time I've seen this topic come up, the recomendation was separate projects.
Here would be some basic concerns.
1. File size
2. Revisions and Addendums
3. Bidding and Contract award.

It seems to me that perhaps developing a template file with drafting details would be the first step and then as details were added you could update the template file and transfer project standards. And develop details that are site/building specific in each project. It seems more like the Revit way of proceeding.

Let me know if I'm off base here.

John

[Scott Womack]

Does Revit allow you to reference details from other project's within a callout? "See detail 1/0-A-900".

Jeff, Unfortunately no. Revit would not have any chance of knowing what to reference with a live link, without some form of opening that other file. The only work-a-round I have come up with, is to create dummy sheets for the ones you need to reference, then create drafting views with a single line in it, for the number of detail you are trying to reference from the other set. Of course, this requires all of the sets to be issued at one time, or a bidder would not have that sheet in that set to look at.

[jeh.212740]

Good morning,

My recomendation would be a single file with a workset for each building. This will give you the ability to cut life sections at all locations and eliminate the need for additional views. With worksets you will have the ability to turn worksets off when working on one building make the working file size smaller.

Good luck

[jsteinhauer]

Jeff, Unfortunately no. Revit would not have any chance of knowing what to reference with a live link, without some form of opening that other file. The only work-a-round I have come up with, is to create dummy sheets for the ones you need to reference, then create drafting views with a single line in it, for the number of detail you are trying to reference from the other set. Of course, this requires all of the sets to be issued at one time, or a bidder would not have that sheet in that set to look at.

Thanks Scott,

Sounds similar to a Revit/AutoCad project we had last year. All of the reference call outs in Revit had to have a blank detail view put onto a blank plot sheet that matched up with AutoCad. What a pain.

[patricks]

So I'm guessing you can only insert sheets from other files with only drafting views contained on them? I tried to insert a sheet with a few drafting view details, a door type legend, and a door schedule, but it didn't list that sheet as available to copy from the Insert from File box.

[brethomp]

So I'm guessing you can only insert sheets from other files with only drafting views contained on them? I tried to insert a sheet with a few drafting view details, a door type legend, and a door schedule, but it didn't list that sheet as available to copy from the Insert from File box.
Correct. Get rid of the "Legend" view and the sheet will insert.

[patricks]

Okay so what is the "correct" way of doing a single site file with multiple building files linked in, and then that site file also linked into each building file?

If I link in the site to each building, rotate the site and acquire coordinates, then link the building back into the site file, I end up getting error messages whenever I open the building files about the other linked files in the site file not showing up because they're set to "Overlay".

If I change the building links in the site file to "Attachment", then I end up getting error messages about circular links not showing up and/or being unloaded (Building 1 link in the Site file link is unloaded since I'm opening Building 1 file), etc.

I also get messages about nested links being invisible because their reference type is set to Overlay in the host linked file. So if I open building 3 (with the Site file linked) then it says the Site link nested in the Building 2 link (which is nested in the Site linked into building 3) will not be visible.

Madness!

Is there a way to not have all these errors and/or warnings when opening these files?

[patricks]

Well that last post was confusing. I'll try to clear it up. I have 4 files total: Site, Building 1, Building 2, and Building 3.

The Site file has the topo information for all buildings.

Building 1 - Site is linked, Overlay, rotated and acquired coordinates.

Building 2 - Site is linked, Overlay, rotated and acquired coordinates.

Building 3 - Site is linked, Overlay, rotated and acquired coordinates.

The Site file has all 3 buildings linked in by shared coordinates, all links set to Attachment. I did this so that the other buildings would show up along with the site when the site was linked into each building file. Doing this gives the errors and/or warnings described above.

Am I going about this the wrong way? Should I link the site AND each other building into each building file?

[cdatechguy]

We regularly work on projects with multiple buildings..each building is its own project file, but everything is linked to the site plan. This way we can create incorporate all the sheets of each building into the site plan for the index. Each building does have its own details though. While we would prefer to have one set of details that would apply for all buildings, the persistent "this detail doesn't apply for this building" went away.

Oh....and by having all the exterior elements on its own workset, we can have some nice site plans with all the buildings in place.

Drawback: We have one building that even with the exterior workset causes the Revit Temp file to be huge! About 6gb I believe. Works best if you have a 64bit machine with lots of memory if you have some pretty big buildings.

[patricks]

We regularly work on projects with multiple buildings..each building is its own project file, but everything is linked to the site plan. This way we can create incorporate all the sheets of each building into the site plan for the index. Each building does have its own details though. While we would prefer to have one set of details that would apply for all buildings, the persistent "this detail doesn't apply for this building" went away.

Oh....and by having all the exterior elements on its own workset, we can have some nice site plans with all the buildings in place.

Drawback: We have one building that even with the exterior workset causes the Revit Temp file to be huge! About 6gb I believe. Works best if you have a 64bit machine with lots of memory if you have some pretty big buildings.

Do you do your site drawings in each building file? I've always done this when it's just one building and one site, and I'll have the building file and site file inter-linked into one another. I figured we would do this on this project also, since these are separate buildings and separate sites spread across the county, but I would just place the topo for each site into the one "A" file containing our details and legends, just to keep the number of Revit files down.

But then I always get the errors or warnings I described above due to multiple buildings being linked into the site file whenever I link the site into a building file.

Perhaps we should just do all our site drawings in that "A" file and not even link the site into the building files?

[patricks]

I think we're not going to do separate site/topo for these buildings. We're just going to have the toposurfaces and pads in each building file since the site work is going to be pretty limited around each building (really just adding ADA accessibility). Hopefully it will simplify the file structure and not cause any other issues, other than having to work off of finished floor relative elevations when editing the topo points.