Area plans and/or rooms with linked models/multiple offices

[damon.sidel]

We are transitioning a project into Revit now that we have completed concept design and starting schematic. It is a hospital and there are 3 architecture firms collaborating: us, our partner who is a hospital expert, and the local architect since this is an international project. We are responsible for the shell, vertical transportation, and "public interior areas". Our partner firm is responsible for 85% of the interior planning and design and the local architect is doing the other 15%, mostly service program like the loading dock, kitchens, materials management, etc.

Through concept design, we produced background plans, sent them to our partner who did program diagrams, drawings with hatched areas with labels. They'd send their file back to us and we'd XREF it into the plan and make any last-minute adjustments (stairs being shifted around, for example).

Now that we are getting into the layout of each room and we're in Revit, I'm unfamiliar with doing colored plans with linked models. For example, we still need the program plans, which I assume will be area plans. Is it possible for our partner firm to create those area plans and we link them in to the main model? Similarly, if we have to do color room plans, how does that with an interior model linked into a shell model?

Any information would be helpful, thanks.

[dhurtubise]

If you are all using the same parameters then you create the color plans no problem.

[jsteinhauer]

If you look at the 'Edit Color Scheme' (Architecture tab ==> Rooms & Area drop down ==> Color Schemes, or properties of the view ==> graphics section ==> color scheme) dialog box, there is an option to include items from a linked model. As long as the functions & departments are exactly the same, it should color the rooms just fine. You can edit the colors of linked elements, but it is easier if they are the same.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[damon.sidel]

Thanks dhurtubise and jsteinhauer. That answers part of the question for rooms. What about the fact that our partner won't be modeling all the walls? So some rooms will not be bound. Do they need to add room separation lines everywhere that we have a wall in our model but not theirs?

Then there is the question of area plans. In Autocad, they've been drawing closed polylines with hatches and we XREF those into the plans. If they are still responsible for the (most) of these programming diagrams, where do we put the area boundary lines? Can they draw them and can we use them in the main model? How's that piece of it work?

[jsteinhauer]

So if you're responsible for Core & Shell, then someone needs to take control of the remaining interior walls. Your model will be linked in, and under the properties of the C&S model, it should be set to room bounding. This way the firm responsible for the interiors can place rooms, and rooms along the exterior will have bounding elements. You should be able to do most of this work with rooms. I have stayed away from Areas in my projects, because it becomes another level of coordination that might not get done.

You'll want to setup a view, and apply your color scheme to it. This will give you a graphical layout of your building, letting you know if you have rooms misidentified or not. When possible only create one model with rooms.

Best of luck,
Jeff S.

[damon.sidel]

Thank you all for the input. I think at this point you've answered most of my questions. I think I'll have to test these suggestions quickly to confirm the step-by-step and formalize the process for our team. Thank you!

[Duncan Lithgow]

If you want to pre-define valid values for your program plans parameters have a read up on Key Schedules. We've had a lot of bother with variant spellings and such like which mess up our color schemes and color scheme legends. Have fun.

[MikeJarosz]

If the exterior wall is in a link, make sure you set the link as room-bounding!

[damon.sidel]

Thank you all again for your feedback. We've gotten the rooms working based on everything everybody said to give us net areas for each room (it's a hospital, so there are a lot of individual rooms).

As for the gross areas that we want to serve as department plans, we can use the linked model to show "By Linked View" and choose the appropriate area plan! This may be old-hat for everybody else, but we haven't worked this way before, so I was pleased to find such a simple solution. Our partner architect can do the area plans, but we are still responsible for the final set of drawings.