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Class Description
Learn how to create outstanding Planning Projects in Revit Architecture. From single client T.I. to large scale Planning and Urban Designs you will learn proven concepts & techniques for creating high quality Revit projects. We will cover several ways to efficiently integrate Planning requirements with down-stream project designers & production teams. Learn how to setup projects and templates so you can prepare documents & presentations that are at once detailed, clearly informative and convincing for your clients (not to mention downright beautiful). You may have new Additional Services after you leave this class. By applying the concepts of this course you will be able to smoothly transition your existing techniques into a more powerful workflow and will be better suited to manage both large views, as well as large numbers of views. This course will instruct attendees on techniques for the Revit BIM platform that are at the heart of every successful planning & design project; focusing on planning, pre design and schematic design protocols, content creation, standardization and setup that will provide fantastic presentation materials and graphics for the all-important client meetings & municipality approvals processes. Create Master Plan presentations in Revit Create & strategize options to manage multiple concepts Create advanced schedules, parameters and calculated values for program verification Input, manage & analyze program data through schedules & objects Establish scalable standards for future planning projects
Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
About the Speaker: Jay is the VDC Director of BIM at Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio-111. He brings unique & qualified insights into the business & creative processes of Architecture with proven strategies for production & growth. Art - Architecture - Technology - Ideas These are Jay B. Zallans professional passions. He is a Designer, an Artist and a BIM futurist. Jay has more than 20 years of Architectural experience and enjoys a varied & diverse portfolio ranging from High-end Custom Residential Design to large Mixed Use Development projects as well as many practice areas between. He is the Co-President of the Los Angeles Revit Users Group and one of the few people with Autodesk ICE (Implementation Certified Expert) qualification. He frequently speaks and consults on BIM and Virtual Design & Construction. Jay is a recurring presenter at Autodesk University and presents at Universities and other industry events, as well as for the AIA. He is a certified Instructor for Revit, AutoCAD Architecture and AutoCAD and has taught thousands of Architects and Engineers how to use and integrate technology to further their business goals. As an Artist Jay works in a variety of styles & media, constantly experimenting with subject, concept and material. Most works are iconic, large, multi-panel mixed media works. Jay also teaches Art, Architecture & Creativity classes both privately and as a frequently invited guest instructor at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Enabling, empowering and inspiring others to realize their own dreams and creative potentials beyond limitations whether real or perceived.
Email Blogs J.B.Z.wmail@gmail.com http://cad-vs-bim.blogspot.com/ http://losangelesrevitusersgroup.blogspot.com/
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Planning is one of the aspects of AEC where Revit can be used quite
powerfully, benefiting projects immediately as well downstream into all project phases. To get fast and early reviews of programming needs we create schemas that suit our many needs. Beginning with a master template that has pre-defined components, protocols and standards built in; then move to create other templates based off of that, for each and every other need, such as: Practice Area templates, Project and Client specific templates, etc. More templates can and probably will be created anew, based on these focused templates, perhaps including harvested and most importantly QA/QCd components from current or previous projects. Done right focused templates can be of substantial benefit to project delivery schedules, quality and client trust. Creating, inputting and presenting the planning data from a single point, such as Revit is one key to the continuity of information and can ensure that the original design intents and programming requirements are held to.
Templates Topologies
Before anything we must formulate a roadmap to ensure predictable results, inclusive of most of our needs. The common roadmap for any project is: Assess / Devise / Generate / Validate.
Assess The type of project will dictate what approach is used and there are
many possible approaches. Herein we will look at several project types: TI and Office, Urban Planning and Client specific projects; in your approach define the scope of the project, based on client program, practice needs, etc. Generate a topology to capture thoughts and ideas, as these will most likely fluctuate so having good process documentation is paramount to train & communicate to colleagues and others.
Devise (Plan) your needs, keeping the end result in mind; Will this become
an office standard, will it need 3D review or simply 2D and Informational and on and on. Sketch out what the components and results want to look like a sort of cartoon set of components and sheet design, etc. At the end of this document
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
is included a simple but useful 2 page Family Planning document that I use to sketch out & help formulate and plan families, designs and so forth; this way when I get to the actual creation phase I have a good understanding of the items necessary and have a kind of blueprint for blueprints, as it were.
Generate or Create: Need I say more? Well, I will This is the time to begin
to create the families, key schedules, schedules, parameters (shared & or project), design options and any other components that were deemed necessary in the assessment and planning phases. The suggested workflow is to create prototypes for each individual object, outside of any official template first, so validation can be accomplished without creating havoc in final template files.
Validate. The QA & QC phase. Flex all families in both the family editor as
well as in a proxy project, again before bringing them into any prospective project or template. Test all other components & schedules, etc. we only want completely functional and tested objects into Revit.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Urban Design Projects utilizing site, contextual models and Revit model studies
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Generating Topography objects (and potentially context models) from existing digital data such as CAD, points files, *etc.* is one way to get the plan going quickly. 3D topography information does not always exist early on in some projects though, so to create early phase project topographies one can use the built in Revit site tools or the growing number of add-ins such as EaglePoints SiteWorks & Landcadd for Revit. Context can be started off as either topographies, floors or simply as Area Plans. Below is an example of a compelling, yet simple model using a topography created natively in Revit by temporarily overlaying a 2D Survey and creating in place extrusions for surrounding buildings, using assumed heights gathered from site visits. To keep the models simple, each set of contextual buildings (that were to be the same height) were modeled as one same family. Masses and area plans were utilized to prove out if the program was being met and several illustrative presentation graphics were created giving a very thorough exploration of the concepts that the client and design team required.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Entertainment Studio Project created in Revit as a simple site model and several context model families. Rendered in Artlantis.
Calculations
Many calculations can be performed quite early on in planning projects; below is a calculation for LEED credits, with Number of persons below that: if(and(ROOMS_ID > 0, LEED_Room_Day Light Factor > 2), "Yes", "No")
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
(Area / DOORS_Occupancy_SquareFootagePerPerson) / 1' ^ 2 + 0.5 Note: Since the parameter names above dont use normal English I do not suggest that syntax (I.E. no spaces and some use underscores) I strongly suggest using only Modified Sentence Case as a rule. Notice how confusing the examples above look this is a result of multiple people using different processes (read as: not caring about clarity, or others) That makes management more difficult at best It is recommended to plan and write out all necessary calculations and mappings to/for parameters: Hint When writing Calculated Values into a Revit project use an application like Notepad to write them out, since in the Revit Schedule environment copying and pasting partial formulas doesnt work.
Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
With the masses in place Floor Areas are generated by selecting all of the masses and choosing Mass Floors. This will generate the Areas of the masses and allow the calculated values to calculate. In this file you can set the mass heights to account for the entire building, as if it will have the same layout throughout (below); or create distinct layouts for each level (above).
Building Planning Template with base set of objects; note the schedule on the right is for sheets, and rounds the parking totals and shows fewer parameter fields.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Room schedule keys are exceptional to help in the process of programming setup & input; as described previously, this functionality is key (pun intended) to reducing repetitive input, as Key schedules allow many fields to be pulled into
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Schedules, simply by selecting the correct Key from a drop down in the schedule, as illustrated below.
Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
for standardized, repetitive data (schedule keys) and another point of input for the other requirements of a program, such as the rooms themselves (room schedule). These components should be created based on the program(s) obviously, rather than generically in most cases; this is one of the factors requiring a tiered template schema. Use both management and presentation schedules for maximum flexibility! Note the name of the schedule above; I like to use *Mgmt as a prefix to group all of the management schedules at the top of the project browser subgroup, as well as to provide schedules that can be changed for any scenario, without affecting the schedules on sheets. The schedules that are intended for sheets & publication have names in ALL CAPS, while the management schedules use Modified Sentence Case. The use of management schedules (and views) allows one to see any or all possible data, independent of the published set. Create Room (grouped or not grouped) The Room Type Groups below include a default set of items that will be used to create the Bubble diagrams. For this example the template has embedded starter families/groups in the modeling environment, this was based on team preference. In the examples throughout this, you might have noticed that we match (as close as possible due to transparency, etc.) Rooms, Areas & Masses for their metadata & color values, so they mimic one another and can be combined for a range of possible dynamic diagrams; although one could use either OR both methods
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Groups such as these are comprised of Room Separation lines, Rooms and Room Tags. Copy both the group and detail group when laying out the design. Keep the groups arranged with gaps between each, thus allowing layouts to stay flexible and variable on demand, while not creating warnings (always the best (or only) approach: Zero warnings all the time). It is important to note that using groups in this way is only one method possible and freestanding room separation lines, rooms & tags can and should be used in many situations; perhaps your firm or office has needs that groups are not used too often generally or specifically do consider the benefit of both methods when choosing.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Image showing the ribbon where new rooms are added within a schedule
Add new rooms from the management room schedule before enabling design options and before placing any rooms into the project modeling environment. This will save hundreds or thousands of wasted clicks to input, rename, etc. See image above.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Plan view of a (University) Client specific Template using Mass families for preliminary planning.
Watching the schedules update nearly instantaneously, as we switched to different types of these objects was quite impressive and allowed greater freedom for the entire team and on-demand preliminary cost analysis.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Once in the project analysis is performed using a mass schedule; the parameters and calculated values generate a preliminary cost. Note that similar mass families are able to be used in detailed multi-floor urban design files discussed elsewhere in this document.
Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
More Calculation(s)
Cost Per SF * Gross Floor Area / (1' * 1') is the calculated value that gets us the desired predesign estimate. -See image below
One simply inputs a numerical amount into the Cost Per SF parameter field, either from the components themselves or from the schedule (my favorite way, as well as a best practice) and the calculated value will keep a running tally for you. Next arrange the building blocks (AKA mass families) into desired schematic layout(s) and youre off and running. If multiple options are necessary one can always use several files but since schedules can report values from individual Design Options we can simply create Design Options to allow evaluation of multiple layouts & plans from the single project and compare/contrast side by side. Design Options will be discussed later in this document. An Important Note on Calculated Values: If you were wondering what the (1 * 1) is, in the calculated value then you will surely like the following
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
"Let'sassumethatyouareusingCostparameteravailableinWalltypeasyourunitcost.When youassignnumericvaluetoCostRevithasnoideawhatisthemeaningofthisparameter.It couldbecostpersquarefoot,costpersquareinch,costperlinearfoot,costperwallinstance, etc.Youaretheonlyonewhoknowsthemeaningandyouuseyourknowledgewhilewritinga formulaforcalculatedvalueinschedule.Revitjustenforcesthatunitsofmeasurementarethe same on the left and right sides of your formula. Let say you want to compute TotalCost (numberparameter)thentakingintoaccountthefactthatunitCostisalsoanumber(nounits ofmeasurement)andAreaparameterhasunitsoflengthsquareyouwouldwrite: IfCostispersquarefootthenTotalCost=Cost*Area/(1'*1') IfCostispersquareinchthenTotalCost=Cost*Area/(1"*1") IfCostispersquaremeterthenTotalCost=Cost*Area/(1m*1m) IfCostisperlinearfootthenTotalCost=Cost*Length/(1') IfCostisperwallinstancethenTotalCost=Cost Makessense?" -From a posting by LRaiz, in an AUGI discussion found at this link (if it works any longer): http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=17847) Sure does make sense, thanks Leonid: for Revit also!!! Design options Enable us the ability to manage multiple concepts in a single project. For detailed information on how to use design options (and phasing) refer to the AU session AB118-1 (http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=e_class&session_id=5378) Not Your Dad's CAD: Phasing and Design Options in Autodesk Revit Beau Turner & Lonnie Cumpton. In conclusion To get fast and early reviews of programming needs create schemas that suit your various needs. Perhaps beginning with a master template that has predefined components, protocols and standards built in; then move to create other templates based off of that one, for each and every other need, such as: Practice Area templates, Project and Client specific templates, etc. More templates can and probably will be created anew, based on these focused templates, perhaps including harvested and most importantly QA/QCd components from current or previous projects.
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Ah, What's The Program Doc? Revit for Planning and Programming Projects
Jay B Zallan, BIM Director, Perkowitz+Ruth Architects & Studio111
Done right focused templates can be of substantial benefit to project delivery schedules, quality and client trust. Creating, inputting and presenting the planning data from a single point, such as Revit is one key to the continuity of information and can ensure that the original design intents and programming requirements are held to. Additionally starting off using Revit at the earliest possible time is beneficial to overall project delivery and consistency.
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