Week 9 - MEP Modelling

This week I received the (relatively) completed model so that I could start on the lighting layout.

After a few confusing minutes as to why none of my lights were able to be placed in the rooms, I realised that somewhere along the track Adam didn't draw in ceilings for the rooms/hallways so I had to quickly jump in Revit Architecture and draw the ceilings in. This wasn't a massive issue but enough to set me back an hour or so in my modelling process.

I've decided to use Cooper Industries light products as my chosen range because a) they are Australia, b)they have extremely detailed lighting specs and c) all their products have a downloadable Revit family group. By using these real world products instead of the generic lighting products I am able to start to properly utilise the BIM nature of Revit in that all the lighting products have all their real-world specs loaded in and manufactures information.

These two lights are a few of the lighting products I'm using for the lighting layout. First is a suspended ceiling light suitable for hallways and interior workspaces. The parametric options in the model itself allow for the drop-height to be changed according to the room size/needs and different bulbs can be swapped out.

The second is a wall mounted strip downlight that I'll be using for the reception and along the top level walkways as these spots don't have a flat ceiling (or any at all) above them and this makes lighting a large space pretty easy.

First proper issue that has been encountered is that even though I drew the new ceilings in on the Architecture model, they still won't pick up in the ceiling plan views in the Lighting project file. I tried for a while looking for a fix but time was getting away from me and I used another method. I went into 3D view, made a section box cut through the room I needed, and using the 'Place on Face' command, I was able to attach the light need to the underside of the ceiling. Once it was there I could then go back into my ceiling plan view and copy/rearrange as many as I needed

I found a suitable light for use within the gallery spaces on the Cooper Industries site. This is a LED based downlight with an adjustable pivot head. This light is cheap to run, easy to install and can be aimed at whatever surface you need illuminated and at what angle.

Below are the ground and first floors lighting grid layout plans. I've never used MEP for lighting arrays so it was interesting working out how to implement them and do all the wiring detail (as best as I know how).

Ground Level Lighting layout

Second Level Lighting layout

This is a zoomed in section of the lower gallery space and how I managed to work both kinds of lights (suspended ceiling and downlights) around Jake's interior layout.

Ground level gallery