CASCO
"With Autodesk Revit, designers spend less time on tedious CAD chores and more time on design. In one account, we’ve seen productivity gains of 25 percent and have relocated those man-hours into a more productive design effort." "When there’s a large quantity of files, Buzzsaw is the way to go because of the ease with which you can move files around." |
CASCO, an architectural and engineering firm based in St. Louis, Missouri, serves major national and international retail, hospitality, and restaurant clients. Ranked ninth in the Engineering News-Record Top Retail Design Firm list, CASCO specializes in developing and adapting prototype facility designs for some of the largest national and international retail chains.
In working with these large retail clients, who generate hundreds of design files a year, CASCO has found that the Autodesk® Revit® building information modeler and the Autodesk® Buzzsaw™ online project management service help streamline the design and management process.
Visualizing Success
CASCO uses Autodesk Revit visualization capabilities to get fast approval and move the design process forward. One client, who had leased a multilevel subterranean space in Manhattan, wanted only a lobby on the first floor, with retail space on three lower levels. A well-designed lobby that would entice customers down into the retail space was crucial… communicating that design effectively required a 3D view.
The Autodesk Revit visualization capabilities made it easy to design and model the lobby. CASCO designers used the 3D Revit model to quickly show their client how elevators, escalators, and other elements of the lobby design fit together to create a compelling space.
Conventional methods such as hand drafting or artist rendering would have required weeks. With Autodesk Revit, CASCO produced the first model in two days. As the project evolved, they were able to refine the design in a matter of hours. “Revit gave us the ability to produce those visualizations very rapidly and accurately, which we would not have been able to do nearly as rapidly with any other tool,” says Norm Birtley, manager of information systems.
As the project progressed, effort put into design visualization was not lost. The information to create the 3D view was also used for design and documentation later in the project, saving time and ensuring that design intent was reflected throughout the project lifecycle.
Enhancing Productivity, Reducing Costs
Generating a huge number of design files every year, CASCO’s retail clients need an efficient way to manage volume and reduce overnight shipping costs. By providing a central online location for file management and transfer, Autodesk Buzzsaw does just that. “When there’s a large quantity of files, Buzzsaw is absolutely the way to go because of the ease with which you can move those files around,” says Birtley. “No other service has the ability to move large quantities of files with the ease of Buzzsaw.”
What’s more, “If you know how to use Windows, you know how to use Buzzsaw,” says Birtley. Its Windows Explorer–based user interface is easy to learn.
More Time for Design
“With Autodesk Revit, CASCO designers spend less time on tedious CAD chores and more time on design. In one account, we’ve seen productivity gains in the order of magnitude of 25 percent,” says J. C. Alberts, president of CASCO. “We’re looking to reallocate those man-hours into a more productive design effort.”
In terms of ease of use and learnability, CASCO designers have ramped up on Autodesk Revit quickly. For an exterior perspective study of a grocery store, CASCO used “a person who had never touched Revit before, and in a week we had a three-dimensional model created, and in two weeks, we had a fully rendered presentation,” says Birtley.
CASCO was able to use all this information for design and documentation, in lieu of starting from scratch in the next phase of the project.
A Virtual Model for Mock-Ups
To get the feel of a retail space before committing to complex and expensive projects, retailers often build mock-up stores, complete with lighting, signage, and merchandise. Executives can walk through these full-scale mock-ups to feel what the customer feels. Using Autodesk Revit software to model and visualize a project instead can save clients millions.
“We had a client that spent $10 million to build a building to put their mock-up store in. ...It’s an unnecessary investment any more. ...Many of the decisions that have been made in the past based on full-scale models or test stores can now be made using these visualization techniques,” says Alberts.
Building Model Reduces Coordination Headaches
Autodesk Revit building modeler can help save time and money by eliminating ambiguities and coordination problems in documents. Because Revit automates coordination, documents are clearer and more consistent. “The real benefits of the Revit technology are that we’re getting a more coordinated and integrated set of documents as a byproduct of the model,” says Birtley. All the information CASCO develops for visualization and presentation is captured in the building information model for the construction documents. Nothing is lost.
“The fact that the model is being built in much the same way that it is built in the field, using real components that you can track and schedule and buy, eliminates a lot of coordination and purchasing problems,” says Alberts.
Sharing models also improves coordination with clients. The Autodesk Revit building information model eliminates the difficulty of envisioning 3D environments from 2D drawings, so clients have a better idea of what the project will look like before it is built.
Better Buildings
More time to explore design options means that designers have more control over quality. “Revit puts the pencil back in the architect’s hand as a design tool rather than just a drafting tool,” says Alberts. “We’re excited by the inherent Revit ability to relate design to issues of constructability. This will bring more control back to the architect as the master builder ...and there’s a greater likelihood that the final product—the building— will be better.”
High Volume, High Quality
High-volume projects. Hundreds of files. Multiple reviewers. Autodesk Revit and Autodesk Buzzsaw modeling and collaboration solutions are helping CASCO meet these demands. “Working with retail clients and the enormous number of projects that they do every year, we’re looking to Buzzsaw and Revit to reduce errors and make that process much easier,” says Birtley.
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CASCO Brings Retail Projects to Life with Autodesk Building Solutions (pdf - 81Kb) |