Day-to-day Revit

When they hear the word ‘Revit’, most people either say one of three things:

1. “Woohoo! I love that thing.”
2.  “(Angry noise) Don’t even get me started (frustrated noise)”
3. “Is there a frog in the room?” 

For my first year at S&T I mostly used response #3. For my second year, after beginning to learn how to use it, I switched to response #1. And for the last year, I seem to switch between response #1 and #2 on a daily basis. I’m on the fence.

Love it or hate it, it’s a tool that seems to be here to stay until the next best thing comes along, and although many like myself resist learning it initially until they are forced to, eventually most of us succumb. Yes there are many flash things it can do, but as with many things, greater power creates greater problems.

For me, the introduction of CAD, and in particular Revit, has many parallels with the introduction of the motorcar. Before the car came along, our trips from A – B took longer (although we were blissfully unaware of that). We walked on our own two legs, or used horses. Fast-forward to our modern day. We now have gas guzzling, electrified super-machines that whizz us across vast spaces in comfort and style at speeds previously thought foolish… This is what Revit hopes to be.

With the motorcar has come traffic jams, drunk drivers, car thieves, and flat batteries. All these things have their parallels in Revit! Sometimes the program is an example of CHD (Computer Hampered Design) rather than CAD.

The challenge for those of us that must grapple every day with Revit and its complexities, is to keep the focus where it should be: on the result. It’s so easy for the focus to shift to the limits and constraints of the tool, and it shouldn’t be that way.

Give me a pen and paper any day, I say!

- Posted June 17, 2011