Revit Protects Homebuilders' Design Services

A homebuilder-designer's biggest uncaptured pre-sales/design costs can come from prospects that expect them to design their house plans without a contract.

In that scenario, the homeowner may take those "free house plans" to a different homebuilder for pricing; naively thinking they're getting a better deal.

Here are a few suggestions I've given homebuilders to showcase the value of their design services. My homebuilder clients began using these in 1990; when the first 3D CAD floor planning software packages appeared in the market.

It protects the homebuilder's investment of design time while assisting the homeowner during the design qualification stage.

Its a win-win for the homeowner who obtains a valuable visualization tool to qualify both the builder and their new home floor plan design.

The most obvious, do NOT design or redesign client/prospect house plans for free. Provide the client with a design service fee structure that is independent of construction bid/fees. Provide a sliding fee structure as the client requests more detailed plans.

Provide homeowners with printed Revit 3D isometric/perspective floor plan views rather than the traditional 2D floor plans views. They are unscalable and non-duplicable for another builder to create construction drawings.
Revit 3D house plans provide homeowners with a dramatically better understanding of their design. 3D house plans subtly reflect a higher level of value on your organization when compared with other builders.

Revit's whole house 3D floor planning tools (walls, doors, windows, plumbing fixtures, dimensions, etc) expedite the creation of house floor plans. The entire house (all floors) is designed and coordinated in a single file.

Homebuilders' design services provide homeowners with a financially valuable service during the design process. Their construction expertise helps design a more valuable house for the homeowner that also meets their budget.

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Our Home in Revit

Big Thanks to Our Contractor

What's the Real Risk if We Don't Use BIM?

"Are we operating on the leading edge or the bleeding edge?” is a consistent risk question many firms ask as they evaluate the use of BIM within their organization. Justifiably, the firm's reputation and the branding of the firm's design talent may be at risk with any new process.

So when this article came in today, it seemed refreshing to have a legal view on the "perceived" and "real" issues regarding risk mitigation and liability issues for the use of BIM.

Mr. Lowe, attorney-at-law provides some insightful and positive counterpoints that asks; "what's the risk if BIM is not used?" He is a construction lawyer in the Philadelphia office of Duane Morris LLP, is also chair of AGC's PIAC BIM Forum Legal Subcommittee and an active member of AGC's Contract Documents Committee.

His opening comments (points) set the stage for an enlightening article which features work from Mortenson Construction and Turner Construction projects that utilized BIM.

A 3D model offers more specific design information than 2D drawings. Given that the world is 3D and not 2D, how can that additional specificity be a bad thing for project liability?

Most of those skeptics don't realize that the risks are no greater (and sometimes smaller) in the 3D world than in the traditional 2D world.

First, the 2D world is hardly free from risk. Decades worth of construction litigation has proven this point.

....as a practical matter, the use of 3D modeling fosters a broader collaborative effort, especially when the contractor is invited into the process early. Design reviews and clash-review meetings bring everyone into the same room, working to solve a problem. This significantly reduces everyone's risk.

Buckling Up Risks

The construction community and its insurers should embrace 3D modeling to further reduce risk on complex projects.

Web site: http://www.duanemorris.com/

A Contractor's BIM Blog

Check out a contractor's BIM blog that has some history. Authored by Laura Handler, her posts are written from a contractor's experience and perspective using BIM. I enjoyed her latest 2 posts that outline her experiences importing SketchUp files into Revit.

We continue to see the value of creating early communications with builders at the front of today's BIM project. Previously defined as a downstream user, the role of the contractor now moves upstream as a valuable stakeholder to the design teams. A role that helps define attainable schedules, budgets, and efficient construction methods.

We sponsored an October BIM/Revit AGC-Wisconsin learning event. I reported on my company blog the valuable BIM experiences from one of our guest speakers who works for one of Wisconsin's largest commercial contractors.

In July, I created a whitepaper for the AGC-Wisconsin's Constructor Magazine. It documents the tangible use of BIM in the Construction Process. It will provide you with insight to specific BIM features that contractors have used on my client projects. This "BIM in the Construction Process" whitepaper and a link to a free BIM whitepaper from AGC-National are posted at the end of my report.

Big Thanks to Our Contractor

We're making plans to move into the home I designed in Revit within the next week. As a note of thanks we took out a personal ad in our local newspaper to thank our general contractor, Jim Helms owner of Quality Built Homes, Inc. for his efforts. We punctuated that personal ad with a webpage that featured him and a few of the subcontractors that brought this project to life.

I've been photographing and creating video snippets of the project weekly since we started in August. I should have a rolling photo gallery posted soon using a product called FilmLoop.