Splitting Up Revit Models

What criteria would you use to decide if you are going to split or not your Revit Models? And if you decide you are going to do it, how are you going to do it?

Català - Castellano - Deutsch
I just have started working on the biggest Revit project I have worked to date, and as the BIM Manager of the project I had to make certain decisions concerning the protocol to follow in terms of model splitting up. So far, all the projects I worked on where relatively small, so this decision was not so relevant (we basically decided to split models by discipline: Arch - Str - MEP) and it worked good enough. This new project is way too big to work only with this discipline based division, so I wondered what "the experts" would think is the best to go for such a project (and what criteria to follow on future projects).
The project I am working on is a residential complex with a total of around 158.000 m2, and it has 7 residential towers and a common basement, plus some other minor buildings. After looking deep into blogs, forums and linkedin groups, I found this advice by BIM Manager Brendan Smith that I found was exactly what I needed.

In his post, Brendan describes several Revit model divisions according to the project type and size. In my case, I will work with something similar to his last option: "4. On a Large to extremely large job with two or three buildings". I will not follow literally these divisions (to me the divisions between Architecture and Interiors makes no sense and following something more similar to the Uniformat division might be more logic too) but it is a good start point conceptually for the divisions. My actual chosen division system will follow this criteria (see that the abbreviations are based on Spanish, so you could use something similar with English abbreviations):

Architecture
PROJECTCODE-T01-ARQ-ENV-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the façade of residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-ARQ-ENV-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the façade of residential tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-ARQ-INT-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the interior of residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-ARQ-INT-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the interior of residential tower 02)
...
Structure
PROJECTCODE-T01-EST-CIM-R01.rvt (Contains all Structural Foundations for residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-EST-CIM-R01.rvt (Contains all Structural Foundations for residential tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-EST-ESP-R01.rvt (Contains the Floor Structure for residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-EST-ESP-R01.rvt (Contains the Floor Structure for residential tower 02)
...
MEP
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-SAN-R01.rvt (Contains waste/grey and rain water piping for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-SAN-R01.rvt (Contains waste/grey and rain water piping for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-CLI-R01.rvt (Contains AC for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-CLI-R01.rvt (Contains AC for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-GAS-R01.rvt (Contains Gas Piping for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-GAS-R01.rvt (Contains Gas Piping for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-ELE-R01.rvt (Contains Electrical Systems for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-ELE-R01.rvt (Contains Electrical Systems for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-HID-R01.rvt (Contains Water Supply and Distribution for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-HID-R01.rvt (Contains Water Supply and Distribution for tower 02)

For now, this is our starting point. Thanks to Brendan Smith for the inspiration. After the project is over, i'll share the changes i make to this apporach if there are any.





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