Linking Site Model

[zfei83499323]

Hi there, this might be answered before (sorry that I can't find it anywhere) but I need some opinion on these.

Currently, I am doing a sport complex project. the total floor number is 2 - ground floor (changing areas) and 1st floor (offices, cafe etc). So not a massive project. As I am very very new to Revit, before I started on the building model, I was asked to do my site model in revit. Then, I imported the cad files into my site model and start building and name it Model Stage xx.

The site model is 20mb. the current file I am working on is 120mb. My question is,

1. If I delete the site model and link it in instead, would the file size be smaller? Is it recommended? I am worried it would get too big if we start to do detail in later stage.
2. When I send the consultants the revit model, ie landscape architects and engineer (cut and fill) who need the site model too, do I need to send them the site model file too?
3. There is a lot of cut and fill. At the moment, I have building pad at various part of the building. So, IF I decided to link it, do I do the building pad process in the site model (which might be a pain as I need to keep import the latest cad plan into my site model file, and build the pad without the building. And sometimes the cad plan is not entirely accurate)? OR even it is just linked, I could still be able to do the building pad in the overall model, will it cut the topography?

Thanks in advance.

[Maciej Wypych]

Hi,

1. The file will get smaller, but 120mb for a Revit file is nothing. If you think the site model will affect model performance, just put it in a separate workset and unload if necessary.
However it may be beneficial to split the file, if you think, that changes to the site model will happen on a different workflow than the building model i.e. the changes to the site model will be more/less often than building model or the landscape architect will use site model only for reference.
2. yes. How they would see the site otherwise?
3. Building pad needs to be associated with the topo, so you'll need to keep it in one file. You can link your building model to the site model so you can see the building while creating the pads - Revit doesn't seem to have a problem with circular referencing. Potentially you can lock the pad boundary lines in the site model to elements in your building model so the changes would be kind of automatic - you'll need to open & save the site model for the changes from the locked elements to take effect.

Hope that helps,

Maciej