The Ever Morphing Nature Of The Revit Model

Guten Tag Motherfuckers,

There I go again, working on another gigantic school - which neither the motherfucking Architect (or Engineer) will come up off a set of plans for (unless we fork over cash - and that's not happening).

Instead, we converted a set of .pdfs into ACAD - which, as long as the .pdfs were generated by a computer, works sort of 'meh' (as opposed to .pdfs from scans - which work sort of like total garbage).

Keep in mind that if I were, for some reason, sold on the idea of Reviting, that we would have to shell out even more cash for the honor of using someone's shitty Revit model (at which point we would also get sucked into the never-ending cycle of requesting updated Revit models as what I call 'The Ever Morphing Nature Of The Revit Model' starts to take effect.

Now, I'm already at the mercy of people sending me outdated plans - but as long as they don't make any major changes to them, then the people installing my systems in the field can either figure it out (or it will be obvious that changes were made - and we can issue change orders to request more money for having to redesign it).

Not so when it comes to the gooey cluster (of fucks) that is a Revit model.  I would continuously be getting the latest model - with the latest changes, but no easy way of keeping track of what had changed/tweaked.  No way to overlay the old model over the new (and still be able to actually see anything), so any number of changes could sneak through, only to pop up later as 'mistakes'.

In this particular instance, I got all the way through cleaning up the drawings and inserting my devices - before I noticed something on the very last drawing on the second floor.  An 'amendment' had been added to some of the sheets (sometimes more than one) in addition to some 'addendums' (both of which probably should've just been referred to as 'revisions' to keep things straight).

What caught my eye was that they had started adding devices to some of the rooms - but when I flipped back through the rest of the set - not all of the sheets included the latest 'amendement'.  I contacted the Electrical Engineer to see if they could shed any light on it, but instead they referred me to the company that handled the projects documents (because, of course, they weren't doing it in house).

I had already gotten into contact with this company once to request a set of the Electrical HVAC .pdfs (since they didn't provide them with the set they gave me) in order to locate all of the devices that were showing up on those drawings.

They sent me what should've been the 'latest and greatest', and indeed - every single sheet seemed to include all of the 'amendments' and 'addendums' EXCEPT one - the very sheet that had made me aware of the fact that the set I had been provided was incomplete.  I pointed this out to them (but never got a response).

Oh - and while I was setting up the drawings, I also found that their views clipped entire parts of the building (I'm ignoring that though - I just sketched in the parts that were missing, and if any equipment is missing due to their fuckup, then we'll deal with that later.

Unfortunately I've had to put that entire project on hold in order to finalize an exponentially more massive project that another firm actually did the design on (they are kind of partners of ours - but the owner and installer were getting antsy because that firm is slower than fuck).

I thought I was more or less done, when they came back with additional changes to submit - but then they dropped the bomb on me Friday.  I had completely forgotten that a previous submittal had required me to use the customer's layer system (actually a fairly easy fix - except that there are probably 150 drawings that will need to be updated).

If it had been done in Revit (besides the file being several gig in size - or split up into a dozen models), I'm sure there would be Revit standards (or there are some being developed) that would have to be adhered to - and it wouldn't be as simple as fixing a few layers (which I've streamlined by dropping a couple of objects into each drawing that are on the correct layers and simply matching properties as necessary).

It's par for the course with these kinds of projects (i.e. government projects).  I actually went out of my way for a long time to avoid ever working directly for the government (the area I live in has a number of  federal installations), but their projects pay well (and pay on time) - they just have teams of people whose job it is to nitpick every little detail down to the gnat's ass (only to come back and make changes that made all of those details moot.

In the meantime - I got a comment on my last post from reader 'clark' regarding his three year experience with Revit, and subsequent branching out after 33 years of working in architectural firms on his own to do residential design. It's always nice to hear about someone successfully throwing off the shackles of Revit and going back to productivity and sanity.

He mentions a number of pertinent items, such as Revit's obsession with things that are not actually related to Architecture or Engineering (or drafting/modeling for that matter), leaving you spending half of your time chasing your tail - or the fact that nobody past the Revitards who never leave the office give a fuck about the 'benefits' of Revit/BIM.

They just want their drawings so they can build the buildings - and not have to wait while some simpleton fuck diddles themselves with the Revit dick.  I couldn't tell you all of the rookie mistakes I've seen in Revit models (especially by Reviteers who are patting themselves on the back for making such an awesome looking model).

My favorite part was where he says "having too much knowledge about the actual construction process was actually a liability".  That nails the problem perfectly - what you end up with is an office full of people who have 'mastered' modeling buildings in Revit, but don't know the first thing about how those buildings will be built (or the engineered systems inside those buildings will be installed).

The fact is, the building is going to be built - by people who know what they are doing no less, and they don't care about your fucking model.  They need plans, elevations, details, etc., that are correct (and if they aren't, they want them corrected - quickly).  Most could probably do the majority of the goddamned thing off of a napkin sketch (by someone who knows what they are doing).

Everything else is just busy work for idiots.

Fuck Revit, Fuck Autodesk, and if you don't like it - then FUCK YOU.

-S.F.

Next Time: Autodesk 'Restructures'