Project setup

[WolffG]

I'm setting up a rather substantial new project (2 three story apartment buildings). The buildings are located on two different sites and are of two different designs. However, the general detailing will be similar.
For all purposes, the two buildings will be treated as a single projects and constructed under a single contact.

What is the most practical way to set this project up? Ideally it should be a single set of documents to avoid unnecessary duplication of schedules and details.

[damon.sidel]

Two three-storey apartment buildings shouldn't be a cumbersome Revit file, so I'd say just put it all in one file. It will make management and documentation so much easier. What is the square footage of the project?

[WolffG]

Two three-storey apartment buildings shouldn't be a cumbersome Revit file, so I'd say just put it all in one file. It will make management and documentation so much easier. What is the square footage of the project?

Each building will be on the order of 40 000 square feet, give or take.

How would I differentiate each floor designation? Especially if the finish floor elevations are different?

[jcoe]

You could use a scope box for each building. Assigning the levels/ grids to the scope box will limit their extents to the scope box so they are not seen in vertical views of the other building.

I think a big challenge you might have with two buildings in the same model will be coming up with unique view names, grid numbering, level names...

[LP Design]

IMHO you should NOT try to model these in the same RVT file. The time you would save with shared details is definitely overshadowed by other coordination problems, not the least of which are gridlines, view names, sheet names, linked engineering models.... it goes on. I agree file size is not TOO much of a concern, but separate models are better anyway.

Depending on the size of your team and the project schedule, you might try bringing the first building pretty far along and then "saving off" a copy to start building 2. That would also kind-of depend on how different the two designs are.

Either way, just bite the coordination bullet and accept that you will have to have to do similar details more than once. In my experience with a similar project there will be small deviations anyway, so trying to share details won't save you time over the course of the project.

Hope this helps,
-Logan