Documentation of Large Project...

[MTristram]

Our office is about to embark on a large apartment/hotel complex (26000 sq.m GFA) on a sloped site.

The buildings are all interlinked to each other, of similar construction & detailing, therefore wants to be documented as One Building.
We have a Site Model which will contain all the site information (topography/pads/landscaping)
Due to the size of the project and past experiences of file size we are looking at splitting the building into two building Models, the seperation line for this is still being defined - do you think this is necessary? What file size is considered ok in Revit?
What we are having problems coming to terms with is, if we do break the complex into two building models, how do we document it as One Building - having referencing etc following through and linking, do we link into one file?

Any comments or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[dhurtubise]

A good worksets setup would be preferable i assume. Especially if it needs to be documented as one

[bowlingbrad]

One project file:

Column grids and levels are editable but they cannot have similar names.
If the buildings have similar walls,doors, windows, and components, then when you edit a type, all buildings update.
Documentation becomes an issue. Sheet numbers must be unique. Common detail sheets speed up the drawing process. You run into issues if the set becomes "sets". For example, permitting different buildings at different times. If the buildings have different addresses, the municipality may want separate permits.

Multiple project files:
In order to manage the sheets/views from linked files, you need to either compose the views in their parent projects and configure the links to use those views (plans only). Elevations are harder. You need to use the copy-monitor tool to control the extents and visibility of the grids and levels.
Documentation has the same issues.

This is just my brief description of our office's experience.

I hope this helps.

[sbrown]

I recommend 1 project for the building, 1 for the site and the use of worksets and selective open (and not visible by default) for performance management. In 2008 you can edit groups and links so if performance becomes an issue you just group what you want to work on, then change it to a link edit the link and reload and bind. I've been trying this on a very complex site model and it has made it somewhat possible to edit the site model where in 9.1 I couldn't even place a new point without a long lag time.

[chodosh]

I recommend 1 project for the building, 1 for the site and the use of worksets and selective open (and not visible by default) for performance management.
I couldn't agree more, and after working on a project with double-digit RVT Links, I would strongly suggest the use of a Workset for each linked Revit file. However it is critical that you make sure that you check the properties for both the Type and the Instance of every Linked Revit file when you start assigning them to Worksets, and make sure (as sbrown mentioned already) that the Workset for each link is not set to be visible by default. It is extremely important that all users on the team, even the most experienced Revit user, be aware of these two things when managing a large project with linked RVT's. If the Type and Instance are different, the Links will unload unexpectedly when using selective open/close, not to mention the obvious complications controlling visibility using Worksets and Linked RVT's if you ignore these steps. We now advise our users to be very alert doing this, while the linear path of creating one Workset for a bunch of Links and then down the road changing your strategy and making new Worksets for each Link is very real practice, the trick is to make sure that when you are moving the Link by the Properties to the correct assignment that you also check the Properties for the Type by selecting the Edit/New button and also assign the same Workset there.
Good luck with the project,
LC

[bowlingbrad]

Another problem with a single project with multiple buildings... When a building needs to be rotated/relocated on the site. All of the views and annotations need to be individually edited. Unless I'm missing something?

[dbaldacchino]

I think the biggest drawback is the inability to override linework in a link. This could be alleviated if we could set the "By Linked View" for all views, but as it stands I'd rather go for a workset solution (wall cleanup is a problem too). Anyway, I think it's easier to try both solutions in 2008, since you could start with separate files when modeling the building and if you find you cannot overcome some difficulties, you could bind the link pretty easily. I wonder if worksets in a link come into the host file, especially when binding the link. Gotta do some testing :)

[MTristram]

Great thanks for all the helpful advice.

We currently have it sitting in 9.1, the project is on hold, but will take it into 2008 when we get the go ahead.
My plan so far looks like binding the models into one and worksetting the two buildings, if it gets too difficult it is relatively easy to take them out to individual building files later.