Multiple buildings - multiple plots - one topography

[amarkovi]

I need some suggestions on how to handle a project with multiple buildings (with their relative building plots) and having one large topography.

Right now I am experimenting on a smaller project with just 2 buildings, however I will have a larger project soon and need a good workflow.

The basic setup is to have one file with the terrain (Terrain.rvt), one file for house A (House A.rvt) and one file for house B (House B.rvt).

I know how to setup shared coordinates and place (link) the house A and B models into the terrain model. I then link the terrain into each house file, so that I have the terrain visible for each house. All the site works (pads, retaining walls. grading...) is done in the terrain file. Now, working on the scheduling for the cut/fill of the terrain also needs to be done in the terrain file - and having multiple (more than two) houses (each house has its own set of sheets and quantity schedules) it will be very confusing distinguishing each one.

Would it be possible/advisable to split the main (large) topography file into individual ones (for each building plot)? I would need a "main" file that would have all the plots/houses combined in order to be able to view the whole and development at once and also to be able to model each individual topography/building plot in relation to the adjacent one.

So basically for a two house situation I would have:

- House A.rvt

- House B.rvt

- Plot A.rvt

- Plot B.rvt

- Main.rvt

House A would be placed/linked in Plot A model and then plot A would be linked to house A (so both the house and the plot are visible in each model) - the same for house/plot B. Then Plot A and Plot B files would be linked into the Main.rvt file, so that everything is visible in it.

It seems to me that this way it would be easier to control the modelling of the terrain for each house as well as scheduling for the site works would be separated for each site individually?

How would shared coordinates be setup in this case, though?

Thanks.

[kadmonkee]

each house is its own file in its own phase @ its own shared coordinates.

terrain is one file for the complete site.

phasing is one approach but each phase sequence would be based on each house.

the terrain model would also share the phasing sequence as you cuts and slabs are impacted by phase etc.

using a campus model approach you can set up the phasing by linking all models into the campus model and assign the phases.

during this process you can use a workset for each linked file to help visually which phase /Building you are setting up.

i hope this helps and doesn't cause more confusion

you would then do all your work in the individual models and see the results in you campus model

[barthbradley]

Attached Screencast, I did a while back, describes the nuts and bolts of the workflow you want to follow.  

Building Pad Cut&Fill Data from Graded Region Copies of Split Surfaces | Revit | Autodesk Knowledge ...

[amarkovi]

This explained a lot, thanks.

If I'm understanding this right the terrain is one file and the topography is sliced and separated into individual plots by physically slicing the topography and by assigning different phases to each one accordingly. This way, when scheduling for site works, it would still be all in one file but it can be filtered by individual building site. 

So the topography is modelled in this one file and by linking it back to the individual houses each house will have its part of the topography visible in its own file?