Chapter 2. Creating an Effective Project Template

A lot of work goes into putting together a building design project. It is not only the coordination of design intent but also the coordination of the means to communicate the design intent. Anyone interested in saving time and money to achieve the goals required by a project will immediately begin to ask how they can simplify or automate the numerous tasks.

Project templates are the cornerstone to improving efficiency when working on a Revit project. Revit MEP is a design and documentation tool, and those who are paid to do design work should not have to spend time on anything other than achieving their design goals. A well-developed project template will enable you to focus more on design without having to spend time developing and defining settings or standards each time a task is required, because they'll already be created for you.

The first consideration for creating a Revit project template should be the requirements for the delivery of the design. There is no need for certain settings or features in a template if they are not used on a project-to-project basis. Some clients may have certain standards that require a unique template altogether. Because project templates are the culmination of company or client standards, they should be managed by one person or a small group of people. Project templates are fluid documents that require updates, so allowing global access to them will make them difficult to manage. However, input as to what should be included in a template can be made by anyone who works on projects and understands the need for features or functionality.

Revit MEP 2011 comes with template files that can be used for starting a project right away. You may choose to use these templates for a project or as a starting point for building your own template.

Whatever its use, project templates are the starting points that allow you to work seamlessly without breaking the momentum of collaboration and coordination efforts of your projects. The goal of creating a template is not to include every single item or standard that you use but to determine what is most often needed.

In this chapter, you will learn to

• Set up views and visibility

• Establish project settings

• Define preloaded content and its behavior

• Create sheet standards