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Multidisciplinary Coordination

Key Concepts
For many decades, the AEC community has relied on a paper-based workow with designers working in
silos that focused on a single project discipline or function and sequentially passing the outputs of their
design decisions on to the next discipline. This isolated, sequential process created many barriers to
eective collaboration and has often led to misunderstandings and mistakes requiring costly rework in
the eld.
In recent years, designers in the AEC community have embraced a new methodology using BIM software
tools and building information models as the basis for a collaborative design process to meet the
challenges of todays increasingly complex and demanding project requirements. Using this BIM
methodology, design teams can deliver projects on time, at a higher quality, and with greater eciency.
While the local benets of adopting a BIM-based design approach to improve the workow and outputs of
each design disciplinearchitectural, structural, and MEPare typically far greater than the costs of
deploying BIM and sucient to justify making the change, the larger impacts of enabling seamless
multidisciplinary collaboration by the entire design team are far greater.
While the transition from manual drawing to CAD-based approaches improved the eciency of the
process, the transition to a BIM-centric design approach fundamentally changes the process and the AEC
workow by revolutionizing the way project information is shared, coordinated, and reviewed. BIM is
proving to be a breakthrough technology that aects project workows, multidisciplinary team roles,

delivery methods, and project deliverables.

Advantages of a BIM-Centric Design Approach

A fundamental advantage of using a BIM-based methodology for sharing project information and
collaborating is that it enables design team members to participate and provide their inputs much earlier
in the design process, rather than waiting in line for their turn after earlier design decision are locked.
This early participation and input enables all design team members to assess the impacts of their design
decisions and processes downstream.
When the entire team can coordinate their work and share design inputs, they can easily assess the
impacts of design alternatives and hone in on the best options earlier, and in parallel. This collaborative
approach enables designers to respect the requirements of the other design disciplines and avoid costly
and time-consuming conicts and design rework.

Multidisciplinary Design Teams

As the design and construction of successful buildings becomes increasingly complex, designers and
experts from many disciplines must be brought together to share their expertise and collaborate on the
design of the key building features. Typically, all of the disciplines and expertise required cannot be
found in a single design rm. Rather, a project design team typically involves designers and experts from
a number of dierent rms that all specialize in their own aspect of the project design.
A typical project team may bring together architects, civil engineers, structural engineers, mechanical
engineers, planners, surveyors, and a host of technical specialistseach with their own perspectives and
goals on what features will create the best design. These designers may also be joined by constructors
and fabricators who will build the project, as well as the facilities personnel who will eventually operate
the completed building. Coordinating the inputs from all these divergent viewpoints into a collaborative
process can be a monumental task.
To achieve their design goals, design teams must produce and manage vast amounts of information
about the projectfor example, existing and as-built conditions, project goals, design options considered,
results of design analyses performed, construction planning and fabrication strategies. A seemingly
boundless range of details must be coordinated, reviewed, and agreed upon by the entire team. Each
team member must develop the information needed and design the features required for their own
portion of the design work, and this information must be shared with other members of the design team
who are impacted by and depend upon these design decisions.
A BIM-centric design approach enables multidisciplinary design teams to create, share, and coordinate
vast amounts of project information, maintaining the integrity of the design teams information and
decision-making as the project evolves. Traditional paper-based approaches are just too time-consuming,
error-prone, and limited to eectively meet the needs of the todays multidisciplinary design teams.
Developing a Model Coordination Plan
Before members of the design team dive into creating models for their individual pieces of the project, it
is essential that key members of the team meet to create standards and document the procedures that
will be used to share models. This step is often formalized in a Model Coordination Plan or a BIM protocol
document that species:

The overall strategy for dividing the design work into packages that will be completed by dierent
members of the multidisciplinary design team.
Who is responsible for the development and analysis of each work package at each stage of the design
process.
The acceptable level of detail for each work package at each stage.
The information exchange mechanisms (network server, FTP site, or other le transfer means) and
standards (le formats).
Who has management or editing privileges for each work package.
BIM-Centric Design Workow
The precise workow used by each multidisciplinary design team will vary based on the specic needs,
requirements, and relationships between the team members. The following steps outline one suggested
approach:
Step 1: Create a Base Design Model
A common rst step in the project design process is for the lead architect to generate a preliminary
design in response to the owners requirements and other design objectives and constraints.
Autodesk Revit Architecture software can help architects to explore and assess to meet their design
objectivesfor example, maximizing usable space, responding to site features and constraints,
maximizing building performance, and creating desired design and aesthetic eectsto name just a few
possibilities. Whatever the design priorities, BIM helps architects to explore design alternatives and
document their design intent.
Step 2: Utilize the Base Design Model
Once a preliminary design has been created, the BIM model can be shared with other members of a
multidisciplinary design team to be used as a starting point for their design tasks.
The BIM model of the preliminary design encodes the design intent of the architect and enables other
team members to participate and collaborate much earlier than traditional silo-based, sequential
workows. Each discipline can link the architects preliminary design model into their own model (which
acts as a host for the linked model) and use the linked model as the basis for their own design work.
Autodesk Revit software products provide collaboration tools that help the multidisciplinary designers
to selectively copy and monitor elements from the architectural model that will inform or aect their own
design as well as elements that created interdependencies between the designs. This capability helps
designers to quickly create coordinated models of the project to support their own workow. To simplify
the workow and avoid degrading the performance of their host model, designers should only copy the
elements needed to coordinate work with other team members.
Having created linked models, each member of the design team can then complete their individual
design tasks in parallel, condent that their design work will remain coordinated with the work of other
members of the team:

Structural engineers can design and model the structural members and framework required to support
the proposed design and recommend changes that will improve the structural performance. They can
also use their structural models as the basis for structural analyses and detailed structural design. The
results of their analysis and design can be linked and incorporated into the overall project model to
ensure coordination with other members of the design team.
Electrical and lighting engineers can design and model the power, lighting, and switching systems
needed to support the requirements of the proposed design. They can use their electrical models to
perform detailed analysis and design of the buildings electrical systems and recommend changes that
would improve the building performance. As with other disciplines, the results of their electrical system
analysis and design can be linked into the overall model and coordinated with other design team
members.
Plumbing engineers can design and model the water supply, sanitary, and re protection systems needed
to support the proposed design. Using the space layouts, xtures specied, and wet walls initially
proposed by the architect, the plumbing engineers can model the pipe routing and perform analysis on
water ow and pressure to design the components of the plumbing system in detail. When their proposed
design is linked into the overall model, their work will be coordinated with the work of others.
Mechanical and HVAC engineers can also use the linked preliminary design to understand the buildings
cooling and heating zones as well as the spaces available for mechanical equipment and chases and
plenums to route ductwork. They can position their HVAC components in the context of the architectural,
structural, and other building elements that may create interferences, thus maintaining the integrity of
the integrated project design.
Step 3: Review and Coordinate Designs
As each discipline completes an iteration of their design work, their models can be linked to an integrated
project model that incorporates the models produced by all disciplines. This essential step facilitates
review, coordination, and interference checking between all of the design work that has been carried on
in parallel.
Every disciplines individual design decisions can have impacts on many other disciplines, especially
where elements from many disciplines must be coordinated to share small spacesfor example, in a
ceiling space where structural elements, mechanical ductwork, and piping systems all compete for
limited space. This is where design review and coordination among all participating disciplines becomes
vital.
In traditional paper-based workows, coordinating drawings created by many disciplines could be a timeconsuming and tedious task fraught with human errors, because conict and issue identication relied on
human interpretation of 2D drawings. In a BIM-centric design process, computers can automatically and
reliably check vast number of potential conicts almost instantaneously.
Revit products enable cross-linking of models created in Revit Architecture, Autodesk Revit Structure
software, and Autodesk Revit MEP software. The models that should be cross-linked depend upon the
teams workow. Typical examples might include:
Architectural/Structural: The structural engineer uses Copy/Monitor mode to monitor changes made to
the base architectural model. The architect can then use Interference Check to verify that architectural

elements are not conicting with structural components.

Architectural/Mechanical: The MEP engineer monitors the architects changes to rooms and levels, which
bound the heating and cooling zones. The architect can link the MEP model to show mechanical system
elements in the context of the architectural elements.
Structural/Mechanical: In this case, both designers benet from interference detection to avoid potential
collisions and conicts between structural and MEP system elements.
Using this model cross-linking feature, design teams can review, monitor, and coordinate the changes
made by all members of the design team. This approach enables model coordination review and
interference checking to occur earlier and more quickly, which allows these essential steps to be
completed regularly as part of an iterative design process.
Step 4: Iterate and Improve Designs
Steps 2 and 3 should be completed often and repeated regularly as part of an iterative design process.
As a design matures and continues to adapt and respond to the requirements and opportunities realized
by all the project disciplines, the entire project team can be updated with the latest version of the
integrated project model.
Using these updates, they can continue to advance and rene their individual designs in their own
models, always in coordination with the integrated model.
This ecient process enables the entire design team to participate in assessing proposed design options
and contribute their insights to help the project team nd optimal design choices based on broader
multidisciplinary considerations.
Lesson Roadmap
In this unit, students will learn how BIM tools can be used to support a multidisciplinary design process.
They will learn how to:
Create a dimensional framework that helps coordinate design work of team members using a series of
linked models.
Place placeholder elements in a preliminary design model to encode the architects design intent.
Link Revit models and copy shared levels, grids, and reference planes, as well as elements that are
relevant to the design work of specic disciplines.
Model the elements typically placed by structural, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical system
designers.
Link and integrate model created by many disciplines and using coordination review and interference
checking to look for conicts.
Software Tools and Requirements
To complete the exercises in this unit, students should download the following software from

the Autodesk Education Community website [1] and install it on their computers:
Autodesk Revit Architecture
Autodesk Revit Structure
Autodesk Revit MEP
This unit presents a high-level view of the functionality in these tools to illustrate the benets of using a
BIM-centric approach to multidisciplinary design. The features presented are a small subset of the full
range available in Revit software, specically focusing on model linking and basic design tasks.
For more detailed coverage and examples of how to use Revit products for structural and MEP design
tasks, students can refer to:
Curriculum materials available on the Autodesk Education Community website.
Revit software products extensive help system.
Videos and tutorials available in the Revit help menu.
Files:
Complete Unit Instructor Guide [2]

PowerPoint Unit Deck [3]

Complete Unit Student Workbook [4]

Source URL: http://auworkshop.autodesk.com/es/library/bim-curriculum-coordination/multidisciplinary-coordination

Links
[1] http://www.autodesk.com/edcommunity
[2] http://auworkshop.autodesk.com/sites/default/les/core-page-les/bim_unit-04_instructor_guide_2011_nal.pdf
[3] http://auworkshop.autodesk.com/sites/default/les/core-page-les/bim_unit-04_slides_2011.zip
[4] http://auworkshop.autodesk.com/sites/default/les/core-page-les/bim_unit-04_student_workbook_2011_nal.pdf

Published on Autodesk University Workshop (http://auworkshop.autodesk.com)