Revit for Conceptual Design... Yes or No?

I recently posted this comment to a Linkedin Revit Group on  Revit is not efficient for conceptual models ! Do you agree with this?
Thought I'd share it here as well...

It really depends upon the user, I have some power Revit users that wouldn’t hesitate in starting conceptual modeling straight in Revit, all the tools are there and available to you, it’s just a matter or knowing what’s available and learning how to use it. Other designers are not so familiar with Revit and prefer to use Sketchup or AutoCAD.

Don’t try and force people to choose one over the other, Designers are creative people (nature of the industry) if I try to constrain them and limit the tools that have available to them all I’m doing is constraining their creativity and ultimately they’ll feel that and leave!

What I choose to do (as BIM Manager) is provide guidance and boundaries and provide information on how and when we transition from one software to another, in our case when we stop modeling in Sketchup or AutoCAD and rebuild the model in Revit.

Even when a conceptual design is created in Revit we will stop and rebuilt the project again in Revit when transitioning from Design Development stage, the reason for this is that DD is inherently a fast paced, quick and dirty design process. We want to think fast and throw down ideas as they come. It’s a very creative process that doesn’t focus so much on accuracy… unlike Preliminary Design…

So a documented process where my designers have the flexibility to use the tools they are comfortable using…. And a given point where they know to take it into Revit for further development.

Works for us!

 

Sc