Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Revit Design Adventures: Kitchen Reno 2

In my last post I introduced a new series that I'm writing called 'Revit Design Adventures'. We are examining a kitchen renovation project. This will be done in Revit and we will make use of most of the Revit toolbox. There will be a number of iterations along the way. Let's start with the first iteration:


First Iteration
Managing Expectations

As we saw in the last post the client has provided us with some basic sketches as well as a verbal explanation of what they want.


But what does the client really want? There is no need to over complicate this question. The client wants a renovated kitchen that they love to be in. They want this to be done within a reasonable budget and time frame.
So are we simply providing floor plans, elevations and details for permit plans and construction documents? Yes, but what they really want from us is assurance of their expectations, as stated above. They may have made many of the major design decisions already, but will they like the results, can it be built and for how much? That’s why we are involved and why we use Revit.
3D views and renderings are always important at this stage, the client expects this. It's important that we don't define too much in the initial 3D views. We need to keep our design on-track by focusing on the overall size, layout and feel.
The initial images should very simple and clean. The first iteration of this project represents about three or four hours of time. This set included plans, sections, 3D views and a rendering which is pictured above. As it turns out, all we needed was the rendering. The client could see that the ceiling was too low and made them think that a sloped ceiling might look better.

In my next post we will continue to look at the first iteration and what are the first things that need to be done before you start modeling.

Next Post:
Three Things you MUST Do First

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3 comments:

  1. 1 thing I have noticed about early 3D's is that a lot of people provide this service for free. Now I understand that it is the initial stage and you are trying to convey the concept as accurately as possible visually.

    My issue is that people don't charge for the rendering the clients come to expect 3D's for free in future even though they take time and effort.

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  2. I've heard it said that 'free' is not a good business model. You deserve to be payed for every hour you work. That being said, clients do expect 3D. That's one reason why we use Revit. If we make good use of the graphic display tools they can get a very nice 'live' 3D view without us spending hours rendering.

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  3. That is correct, if your not doing any renderings and just showing the concept of the actual building 3D with the defaults of Revit, it will at least allow to not waste time and money.

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