Pastaroni

Over the decade plus that I have been doing Electrical Design, Engineering, Drafting, (and beating information out of people who seem bound and determined to fuck me over - despite it being in both of our best interests if they share it), I have done dozens of different types of projects, totaling in excess of 500  -just in the 8 years I have been at my present firm.

While most of the Construction Documents I issue are alike in many ways - they vary widely in scope and complexity.  Every single attempt I have ever seen someone make at grabbing a project 'similar' to the one they are currently working on fails miserably.

They will say 'oh - we did one just like this', and pull out something that bears little to no resemblance to what the end result of their current project will be, and in many cases, this false 'leg up' will be worse than useless, as it allows a lot of assumptions to be made in the similarity to questions that were asked during the old projects design (not to mention designs that are no longer viable due to code changes or local ordinances).

We do a modicum of 'protypical' work that involves doing an initial design and then reusing it (hopefully as many times as possible), however this can also turn into a nightmare as the first one gets built, they come back with some field changes that they want to incorporate into the half a dozen jobs that have been issued since then (and that's before they start tweaking them endlessly).

Sometimes you end up doing as much work on each individual instance of a 'prototypical' job than you would if they were just totally separate projects (this works in the owners favor because they are only paying us a small re-use fee for our prototype and nobody has the sackage to demand that they pay for substantial changes - whether they be all at once or stretched out over the course of several years), although we occasionally get hired to do a 'new' prototype when even the owner has to admit that things are changing too radically for it to just be another (basically free) 'tweak'.

Now - I'm all about saving time, mental effort, and most importantly - maximizing profit, and I will always take a minute to assess whether or not I would be better served by attempting to shoehorn something in versus starting from 'scratch'.  I might, at the very least, bring in the old drawings and strip out some useful details, schedules, layouts, etc. to make sure all my bases are covered.

Combined with the tools that I drop into every new project (which really prevent me from ever really starting from scratch - although I kind of regret not creating a set of job-specific tools - although I could at any time), I have a system for taking a project through design development, construction documents, and beyond.  The real 'from scratch' comes when you attempt to switch up to Revit.  No matter how detailed your template, there are always going to be things that require individual attention on every job, no matter how many times you have done them before.

Speaking of my toolbox, it has gone through several iterations.  It started off a simple set of blocks that made it more convenient when starting a new project than having to load them individually (the Revit template can be set up similarly - with commonly used fixtures/equipment), but it soon became much more than that.

I have mentioned before how I can have basic tools set up on a machine with freshly loaded vanilla ACAD in a matter of minutes (even if I don't dump them off a USB stick or download them), but my extended 'Ubertools' (Copyrighted 2012 - Copy it, and Get Beaten to Death), has everything from typical lighting spacing (based on different ceiling heights), fire alarm a/v device sizing and spacing, typical schedules, legends, notes, and details - including highlighted sections for information to be verified.

It works from a 'put everything in there and then delete what you don't need' mentality.  Nearly every situation that might come up is addressed, and if something unique comes up - it can go in there for future reference.  The 'Revit Is God' argument will occasionally take into account the fact that ACAD users had LISP routines and other ways of doing things that limit the increased amount of productivity they should expect to see in Revit, but none can argue with the fact that you are basically starting from scratch every time you go into a new Revit file, no matter how much work you put into that template.

 Now - with all of that said, cutting and pasting shit (especially old shit) into drawings is one of the fastest ways to fuck yourself over royally.  My tools make use of a couple of elaborate techniques to make sure that misleading information doesn't make it's way into my projects - the first is called 'putting a circle around it', the next is 'changing the color of the text'.  I often have multiple options already entered, and simply delete the ones that don't apply.  If there are circles or off-colored text - then I know there is still information that needs to be verified so they can be updated or removed.

Again - using ACAD to design a set of drawings is not limited to the drawing itself.  You can leave copious notes to yourself, sketch out multiple options for consideration (or so you can simply slap in the one that they end up choosing - and they didn't take a week each, so you can justify it).  Lets say I have half a building worth of lights laid out, and they decide they want 2' x 2' fixtures instad of 2' x 4' - in Revit, I would basically be stuck deleting everything and putting the larger fixtures in (since you can't just do a 1 for 1 swap and still have an actual design).

ACAD also requires deleting the old fixtures and putting the new ones in, but besides being able to do this almost comically faster in ACAD than in Revit, I can also copy the old layout to the side, or save it into a separate file - that way when they decide 'oh - we actually wanted 2' x 2' fixtures after all' and  <BANG> the old layout is back, baby.  (Oh, and this shit happens - All. The. Fucking. Time - no matter how hard you try to keep your boot on the neck of the people making the decision - or passing on this information).

At any rate - I usually (just for my own amusement if for no other reason) start projects off and crank them as far along as I can without actually looking at any other projects (especially the ones that I was told to use as a 'go by').  This guarantees that I will have my head in the game, and not thinking about stuff that may not even apply.  I will eventually go back and look at the older project(s), but I'm usually quite pleased with how much I can remember (or use my tools to keep from having to remember).

Besides being able to sketch things out and start floating ideas for stuff (without having all of it popping up in 3d for other people to mistakenly take as 'gospel' and attempt to coordinate with it), I am guaranteed that no matter what kind of project I am faced with (even if I haven't done anything remotely like it before) I am armed to the teeth, and ready to tear its fucking head off.

Revit just doesn't give me that kind of confidence - and it's not my attitude or skill level with it, it's just not fucking there.  I've been told that in order to use it my approach would have to change, but none of the people telling me that know what my approach currently is, and most couldn't comprehend it even if they did.

So in the meantime - fuck them, and fuck it.