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Lyons Sleeman Hoare Makes Major Commitment to Autodesk AutoCAD Revit Series – Building

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After 20-seat investment, architects can continue to work in familiar AutoCAD environment, but still enjoy the benefits of building information modelling.

The Hampshire-based firm, Lyons Sleeman Hoare, is the latest architectural practice to recognise the benefits of a staged and planned migration from 2D to 3D design. To enable a smooth transition and to ensure that its team can continue to use both 2D and 3D where appropriate, it has invested in 20 seats of Autodesk AutoCAD Revit Series – Building.

Using Revit Series, Lyons Sleeman Hoare predicts significant time-savings at the concept stage - for example, when presenting design alternatives to customers - and through the elimination of repetitive work when changes are made. Revit Series is a combination of the latest version of AutoCAD and Revit Building software. Revit Building is based on parametric technology and, consequently, changes are automatically co-ordinated throughout all drawings and documentation. Not only does this save time and prevent costly co-ordination errors, but it also makes it quicker and easier for architects to experiment with and visualise design options.

Lyons Sleeman Hoare is renowned for its work in both the public and commercial sectors – but particularly for its retail, leisure and mixed schemes. Past achievements in this area include Festival Place shopping centre at Basingstoke, various works at the New Market Buildings, Covent Garden and out-of-town retail villages such as Bicester and the Clarks Village at Street, Somerset. It has also worked extensively for major retailers such as Marks & Spencer and Tesco.

IT manager John Hudson explains that as strong AutoCAD and Autodesk Architectural Desktop (ADT) users, the company was reluctant to abandon the time and cost investment it had made in the software.
“However, I’ve been watching Revit closely for a number of years. I’ve always been impressed but wanted to see whether it lived up to its promise. “I believe it has done so. Now, the time is right to begin moving towards building information modelling (BIM). We wanted to stay with Autodesk , so this is ideal for us,” he says.

BIM is the creation and use of co-ordinated, internally consistent, computable information about a building project in design and construction. The ability to keep this information up-to-date and accessible in an integrated digital environment gives architects, engineers, builders and owners a clear overall vision of their projects and contributes to the ability to make better decisions faster—helping raise the quality and increase the profitability of projects.

Hudson continues: “Also we knew that our reseller, Excitech, has excellent skills in Revit Building and BIM and so we would really be learning from the experts.”
He explains how he believes that a gradual approach is the key to success when migrating software. “We started by moving a small team onto the new software. I purposely chose those at the design end as I knew that their desire to realise their ideas would help them overcome the psychological barrier of new software.

“I was right. They returned from their training highly enthusiastic about Revit Building and this has been infectious as now other groups have asked to try the software. We’ve since trained more people including those on the technical side and have started a user group which meets regularly.”

The ultimate aim is to use Revit Building throughout entire projects, but for the time being, they are biting off small chunks at a time. For example they are currently in the early stages of a town redevelopment project; “We’re using it to design the ticket office of the bus station which is an independent and fairly complex design.

“Already the architects are enjoying using it and it’s helping us produce better quality designs. It is early days, but we are beginning to see productivity gains too. We haven’t felt so eager about a new product since AutoCAD was introduced in the 1980s,” concludes Hudson.

Email: ejond@whiteoaks.co.uk