Need Help with Multi-Family Workflow

[Anonymous]

I've been working on several mulitfamily projects in recent years and have become curious about the ideal workflow for this project type.  I often have a site that is populated by four to six residence types that have between 5 to 10 instances each.  Sometimes the buildings are detached housing.  Sometimes they are apartment buildings. To pass design review we often are required to "skin" these buildings with different finishes fairly late in the process.  This discussion of finishes can become quite involved.  We often explore several variations.

Here is what I usually do:

I create these buildings in separate discrete files.  Once these buildings are tentatively approved by the client, prior to finish selection, I link these residence types - in their generic form - into a site file, bind it, and group it.  Once I have these buildings in the site file I then develop a couple different groups of a single building type so I can make color changes quickly to the finish scenario.  The groups are glitchy.  I have a lot of problems with them when I flip them or try to locate them on a different parcel in the development.  On the other hand, refinishing individual residences can also take a lot of time.  

I've read a lot about links, groups and families and it has only served to show me how thorny the decision can be at this point.  One colleague has told me that with apartment buildings one should NOT use links but rather should group the core of spaces and have exterior walls be continuous between floors.  These exterior walls would not be part of any group.  Is this the conventional wisdom with apartment buildings?  Should single family homes be done similarly with the exterior walls being NOT in any group? 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.  I suspect I could use help improving my workflow.

Thank you.

Mike  

[Judy_S]

Hi, michaeljcobb,

I'm Judy, a Revit specialist and I'll be glad to try to give you some thoughts in response to your question.

Ultimately, workflow issues are a matter of individual preference and as you've noted, there are multiple ways of achieving the same result on a complex project like this, each with their own pros and cons. Some people will prefer groups, some will prefer links, and perhaps others may have other ideas. That said, I checked with one of my colleagues here who has worked on similarly complex projects, and his personal feeling was that the separate exterior model with the interior models (with the unit models linked to them in turn) linked to it might be a good way to go. In this way you can adjust the "skin" to the interior and apply different finishes as desired. In this example, the models were broken this way at least in part due to the way the project team was structured, so this may not be ideal for your situation.

In the end, we don't make recommendations for any particular workflow, as there are many factors to be considered when organizing a complex project like this. Each user needs to decide what works in their particular situation and given time, resources, skill level of users, personal preferences, etc. Perhaps another user will see this thread and provide another perspective or some advice based on how they've tackled this issue before.

I hope this helps! Feel free to update this thread with what you decide to do and where it worked or was a struggle. I'm sure there are others who might be interested.

Cheers,

Judy Staicer

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response.  There are presently six different buildings in the development I'm working on and therefore six groups.  A particular exterior wall type is present in most, if not all, the six groups and I would like to change its color.  There are a couple other wall types that exist because they have different thicknesses and I would like to change their color in a similar manner so the colors match.  Two approaches present themselves:

A. Change the color properties of the material that is currently being used as the face color in this and similar exterior wall type.  This is the preferred method because it would allow me to also change the color of the other similar wall types that also need to have their color changed.

or...

B. Change the material designation of the wall type itself.  This would require more work because I would have to change this in the other wall types as well to get the entire envelope of the building to look homogenous.

My problem is as follows:

When I simply alter the shading color of a material that is referenced in my wall type I am told the groups will break.  The workaround seems obvious enough.  Create a new material with a new color designation (Option B) and replace the present material specified for this wall type.  Unfortunately this material is specified in other wall types too and this just creates more work.  Any thoughts on why switching a material is less problematic than changing a materials color properties when working with groups?  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Mike

[Anonymous]

Here is a summary pdf of the file...

[ToanDN]

Have you tried to alter the material while in Group editing mode?

[manjiri.pawar.bim]

Just bumped into this forum and this is the workflow I have been following:

1. An additional level made at significantly higher height which acts as a "workspace".

2. Units made as groups and arranged on this level and organized as per type/ number of bedrooms.

3. The exterior wall's core (half internal part) would be part of these groups which could be either just wood/ metal stud with internal gyp layers or just brick/ concrete with internal finish etc. depending upon the construction type.

4. These units are arranged on actual site level as per design and shell/ skin/ external finish modeled as a continuous walls which provide flexibility of modification.

5. Typical elevation sides can be modeled as groups.

6. Windows and external doors hosted in the exterior shell/ finish walls with a type parameter applied to be at correct place/ offset. This provides flexibility with changing windows as a part of elevation design.

7. Only additional step is to join the exterior shell walls with exterior core walls to make the windows/ exterior doors cut through the exterior walls of units. I usually have a 3d view made with just walls visible and use "multiple join" function for quicker joining.

8. To avoid glitches in groups, avoid any hosted families and too much nested families.

9. Too much repeated units take a while to save when you try to finish the units. I have used this workflow till around 198 instances of same unit group.

Let me know your thoughts or if you have configured any better workflow after you posted the question. Or feel free to ask any questions you might have.

[gregory.andersonK6FM6]

I would suggest that you do not make exterior or demising walls part of your unit group. The idea of joining exterior walls is a deal-breaker for me. Think about hundreds of users at various levels of expertise and managing the quality control of this critical step. We create exterior walls/doors/windows on an exterior workset and dimension door/window placement on the enlarged building plans.