Forums >> Community >> Newbies >> Why Revit for BIM on Residential homes

bjames

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Joined: Wed, Sep 23, 2009
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Hello Guys, this is my first visit to RevitCity. I have to convince my Boss within the next month on the best BIM software for residential drafting moving forward. I'm currently going through the Trial versions of ChiefArchitect, Visionrez and Softplan. Although I think Softplan is the easiest to learn and produce working drawings why are the majority of forums online tend to still lean towards Revit Architecture. Can Revit do everything that softplan does for residential?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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nastyclown

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Joined: Tue, Jul 14, 2009
271 Posts

check this post ---> LINK

You will lose some time translating standars, and building the custom library  you need, but in long term you will be able to recycle a lot, or creating variations of the same families.

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jterrell

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Joined: Thu, Mar 9, 2006
118 Posts

Revit beats all other software you mentioned in its detailing capabilities and flexibility. However, having used Chief Architect, if I were in an all residential firm that specialized in homes that were not too 'cut up', and required details that were mostly drag and drop, I would pick Chief Architect.

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coreed

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Joined: Fri, Feb 10, 2006
1832 Posts

if you decide to farm-out structral or mep they will probably be using Revit, not Softplan or CheifArchitect. i do like Softplan though. Most people use their history with Autodesk, that's why all the Revit Architecture.

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best regards,

coreed,aia

bmpArchitects,Inc.

"Revit has to be implemented, Not installed." 

Long Live Revit

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thetabest

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Joined: Tue, Mar 15, 2011
199 Posts

Unfortunately Revit, I'm not a big autodesk fan, mostly because they eat up and spit out all the little guys, but it is a very powerful tool.  It especially would excel at residential, you could model a subdivision, link in different floor plans, and generate your site layout plans from it... Then you decide one floor plan is selling better than others, you can easily go back, switch out some of the less popular floor plans with the more popular floor plans and the siteplan will automatically update... Of course you'd probably have to recreate the dimensions as they will probably die when you swhitch floor plans...  I would LOVE to do a subdivision in Revit, and the response to changes is phenomenal, especially with design options, typically with residential, you have different "Options" which the buyer can purchase, custom tailored site plans can be created simply, just modify which design options are purchased under manage links tab for that instance (be sure to name each instance of a house with it's lot # for ease of association and tracking).

Revit also gets rid of a lot of the housekeeping details, For example, create your cookie cutter default construction plans for a given floorplan, then when it comes time to apply to say a lot, just save as a new central file, go to project settings, change the project title to reflect the lot number, or however you name it, every sheet is now updated, you should then be able to print your construction documents, just select any design options and you should be good.

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Trent Best

Best Systems

the.tabest@gmail.com

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