Managing large Revit project

[Coastie79]

Hi all,

We're due to commence a large Revit project with a lot of room repetition and I'm looking for guidance on how best to manage the building model avoid stability issues. Scheme in summary;

1700 bedrooms
6-9 stories
2 blocks with a 60/40% size split
Largest block approx 150m in length

Using Revit 2022, typical hardware Core i9 12th gen, 64Gb Ram.

Site and FFE will be held in separate models, so it's just about managing building and rooms. There will eventually be structural and MEP models involved too. Two big questions are;

1. Is it probably I'll experience issues keeping the whole development in a single model? Obviously it would be better for managing families, standards and sheets etc, but no good if it cripples Revit and our hardware. Splitting into the two blocks seems a reasonable compromise, but dividing again into sub-blocks will bring it's own complications I'd expect.

2. There's a lot of repetition in bedroom types, are Revit blocks a good way to manage these and allow quick changes across the boards whilst still allowing elements and rooms to be scheduled independently?

Any advice from the community would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[syman2000]

First question is the project done in multiple phases or done in one phase? If it is done in multiple phasing, you want to break up the building for their own separate submission.

Second is how many people will be working on this project? If you going to have more than 5 people, it is good idea to break up the model for different work. I would placed the interior units as their own separate links. In that interior units Revit, you create groups of units and copy them. The core and shell will be done in the main model. 

If you don't like the link approach, you can technically built your entire model under one file. From experience when you are on deadline and require additional staffs, you will have hard time working meeting the deadline.

[Coastie79]

Hi syman2000,

Assumption is that project will be single phase.

Expect 3-4 people typically on project. Your suggestion of separating envelope from interior sounds interesting. I have done that in the distant past in Autocad. But from a Revit stability and usability pov,  presumably there's still potential for issues with links loaded?

Separating the two main blocks into their own models remains my instinct, but design standards (family types, COBie etc), would have to be carefully monitored between the two. Anyone else took this approach?

Thanks

[Alfredo_Medina]

Definitely, make each building a model. I would do that always. Each building will have its own links from consultants. Each building is usually submitted for permit individually. Also, having one model per building and per discipline reduces the number of people that need to work on the same model, reducing the time it takes to synchronize. It also reduces the number of views to manage in each model.