Day 1 Review

My sessions for day 1 included, Conceptual Massing, Integrated Design, and Commercial Interios.

The class on Conceptual Massing also included demonstrations on using Revit Architecture to evaluate multiple options for a phased campus Master Plan. Interesting stuff. I am convinced once people get familiar with the modeling tools in Revit, so much is possible. We also learned how to attach constraints and formulae to a conceptual mass, this makes fine tuning the model so much easier.

The class on Integrated Design was presented by a Mechanical Engineer from Australia. He works for a global, integrated design firm which uses Revit, and several other pieces of software, to work on a wide range of design projects. His main point, BIM is not simply more than CAD. It is a quantum leap beyond it. If you think of BIM the way you think of CAD, you are limiting your potential to succeed. He also talked about the importance of integrated teams, the surprising efficiency which can be achieved when people truly work together, and how working across studios is such a challenge.

Some other interesting points from this presentation... People who create Revit families should not be the same people working on projects. People working on projects often get the family only as completed as is necessary for the project. Also, on larger projects, someone on the team is tasked with managing integration, making sure that work is being done by the people who can do the work in the least amount of time or that additional work is done by people if it saves the rest of the team, and the project, more time.

The last class yesterday was on using Revit Architecture for interiors. The most surprising thing, for me, in this lecture was the instructor's support for using scanned, hand drawn information in Revit. As a tool for preliminary design, I can see how this process could be useful. Most useful was his take on detail. Don't go overboard modeling a 5 Mb family when a 300 Kb family will convey just as much meaningful information. Use 2.5D to keep model size reasonable.

It was a good day with lots of informant. We will see hoe today compares.