Do you ever share projects to learn?

[thomas.denney836893]

I am wondering if anyone here ever shares their Revit model project with others as a teaching and learning tool? I would be curious to have someone look at ours, and like-wise maybe take a peek at one or two from other people. But I don't know if this is good practice or request. Do people guard their Revit models so as not to let others see how they do things? :?:

[MikeJarosz]

I would say that most of the time this is not a good idea.

First of all, many clients require legally binding non-disclosure agreements from their architect. This means that architects cannot disseminate information about a new building without prior approval from the client. Some buildings require security, like US Embassies, prisons, courthouses, etc. Some buildings are vanity projects where someone could get into trouble if anyone knew how much was being spent. I did a corporate project that included a wine cellar for the CEO. Paid for by the stockholders, of course, but they don't have to know that, do they? Then there is privacy. Do you want your architect to show your home bathroom to everyone, even if your architect was Richard Meier? Then there is the plagiarism issue. This is rampant in the home and suburban development industry. Someone tears out a page from an architecture magazine and tells their contractor "I like this detail. Build me one just like it"

Then the really big issue: liability. Say I give you my Revit file, and you cut and paste from it into a project you are doing. It gets built, the roof leaks and ruins the client's art collection. Not you, not the contractor not even the client sues. The art insurance company sues. They find out through discovery that you copied the details from me. They brush you aside and come after me.

Insurance companies employ an army of full time lawyers. Facing a million dollar loss, they want $$$$ from my liability carrier. And, you would be surprised how many architects, especially the dedicated artist-architect crowd, living from commission to commission, do not have insurance. I spent one full year as an expert witness on behalf of a boutique architect who was being sued by an insurance company.

So the answer is, be careful when you give your work away. You never know whose hands it might fall into.

[theoryshaw]

There's some sharing going on over at this site. Here's a house i'm working on in Revit: http://app.openingdesign.com/documents/3445

[thomas.denney836893]

Mike- you bring up all great points, and something someone new to the profession like myself doesn't have the experience to be aware of the liabilities involved. So thank you for taking the time to share all of that!

theoryshaw- tried to visit site and view file, but no luck. :(

[theoryshaw]

you just download it (right arrow above 'node details' in the upper right corner of the screen), then you can view it in Revit.

[MikeJarosz]

I should mention that I am not opposed to sharing actual files, just be careful. Get a disclaimer from the recipient. There are many around online, some of them legally unenforceable.

[jsteinhauer]

To add to Mike's post. Many of the things I do in my model are based upon our firm's template. We've spent a great deal of time and money to get our project template and content to align/work together. This is viewed in house as our competitive edge for the project types we pursue. Sharing a project with others, is basically giving away that work, meaning content loaded into that project is available for harvesting. Now, some might think this is a great thing, until you have to tie all the parameters back to your template. This is one reason, I caution people about pulling content off of the web without investing time into verifying it will look & act the way they want, and schedule the way they expect.

[MikeJarosz]

Mike- you bring up all great points, and something someone new to the profession like myself doesn't have the experience to be aware of the liabilities involved. So thank you for taking the time to share all of that!

theoryshaw- tried to visit site and view file, but no luck. :(

It's important to understand that as architects spending other people's money, we are playing hardball.

[damon.sidel]

This is a very interesting discussion. There are some really great points being made here. I'd like to throw in an alternative view. Very simply put, sharing promotes innovation. What if more and more architecture firms shared their templates (let's put aside NDAs for a moment as a separate topic, so only discuss templates)? I understand the "competitive edge" argument, which is quite valid. But sharing should go two ways, so if we shared our templates with each other, we'd both be able to improve them faster.

There's a lot packed in here: privacy, liability, intellectual property, copyright, competition, and more. It could be interesting to explore sharing more freely as a way to speed up improvements in our process.

[theoryshaw]

I agree Damon, just look at the open source movement in the software industry as a precedent here. Viewed in relationship, our industry is a stodgy old dinosaur in comparison.

If you don't have to 'reinvent the wheel' every time, more energy can be put forward to truly innovating. Plus, is an architect's worth in setting up standards and regurgitating the same design over and over, or is it ability to problem solve?

I'm personally not afraid of freeing up the 'content layer' of what we do. In the end, i think it makes us more valuable as professionals. It has for software engineers.

2 cents. Cheers.

[theoryshaw]

Interesting enough, when the open source movement first started some 20 odd years ago, there was a big cultural outcry about liability. Funny how that worked itself out.

[MikeJarosz]

Until it happens to you, the threats sound like some kind of imaginary conspiracy. Do a little research, and you will find it happens all the time. SOM employs a full time staff attorney. Here is a case where the architect was sued and the insurance company failed to defend him! They took the loss and ran. At the time this caused a lot of concern in BIM circles:

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/05/110519-BIM-Lawsuit-1.asp You can spend the rest of the afternoon reading the reader's replies.

The case that I was an expert witness to was in the hundreds of millions. The architect would have been wiped out. No architect can sustain that kind of economic loss. FYI, the plaintiff settled out of court.