In 2018 I was part of the team that transitioned the project from schematic design into design development, which required establishing a design criteria for BIM organization, model setup, and of course mass-populating and editing of 495 guest rooms with varying structural elements to work around. I was brought on board when it was time to translate the SketchUp model that was approved into a functioning building that met code and was designed adequately to meet all applicable building codes. 

Hotels, multi-family residential, and other project types with repeating design elements all generally have one parameter that doesn’t change regardless of room type. The guest bathroom. Which is where I started R&D to come up with a layout that worked for both general and accessible units with a simple tub/shower swap – to take full advantage of repeatability. That carried thru massaging the floor-to-floor heights whereI brought it to everyone’s attention that by eliminating fractions of an inch from the floor to floor, we could actually use pre-cut studs in lieu of custom.

There were a few of these that started me on the path to requesting more front-end involvement with these projects and design. The workflow wasn’t really as smooth as it was sold to be, and the problems that needed to be corrected cause major snarls in deliverables just as the clock starts ticking very loudly on the first project milestones.