hello

[apetitde]

My name's Antoine (if you're English, say "ant"-"one", and it will sound quite the way we say it in French..)
I'm working in a 10-person architecture office in Lyon, France.
I started using REvit Architecture in 2009, being the only user in the office I began with small projects, which I often had to finish with ACAD...
Little by little, I felt easier with the software, and I convinced my colleagues of all the advantages of BIM.
Now the whole office is using it, and everyone's improving.
I hope my experience can help!

[Revit Zone]

Hi Antoine

A VERY warm welcome to our community. Great to have France represented here!!!

You've done a good job convincing your colleagues to come over to the "Dark Side". Did you meet much resistance in getting them to convert? There is usually one or two members of staff who really didg their heels in and want to stick with what they know.

How is BIM doing (generally) in France?

Once again, great to have you on board and I look forward to sharing you Revit experience.

Regards,
Ian

[Revit69]

Welcome Antoine!

[Saw]

Hi,

Lyon is a lovely part of the world.

Mike

[apetitde]

Thanks for your enthusiastic messages!
It's been quite long to convert my colleagues, given our constant flow of work to do.
As you said, we had two staff members who didn't want to learn a new way of working: one of them retired now, and the other left the office to work on freelance. And my new colleagues were younger and much more willing to try BIM.

Things really started when I became able to produce nice rendered perspective views, and colored elevations, based on acad plans.
The next step was to create plans that looked the same as our acad plans, and it was a long way...
I needed a few projects before I got satisfied with what I could create with REvit, and it was quite fun to open the first files a few months after, since I had been using lots of weird workarounds for things I couldn't build right (for the worst: groups of thin floors and walls for louvers, instead of clean families with extrusions...)
When I was able to design and document a small project without any other software, I started a big one on REvit, and insisted, on latter phases, when my colleagues had to work with me to develop it, that we kept on building it with REvit, and we did it!
Now I'm starting to build a good template with all the nice stuff we've created in these different projects.
And I'm still learning and discovering, day after day.

[Revit Zone]

Thanks for sharing this.

Does your office "Workshare" yet with Revit, or are you using it stand-alone. And do you just use Revit Architecture or are venturing into Revit Structure and/oe MEP?

A good template is an EXCELLENT investment in time!

Regards,
Ian

Thanks for your enthusiastic messages!
It's been quite long to convert my colleagues, given our constant flow of work to do.
As you said, we had two staff members who didn't want to learn a new way of working: one of them retired now, and the other left the office to work on freelance. And my new colleagues were younger and much more willing to try BIM.

Things really started when I became able to produce nice rendered perspective views, and colored elevations, based on acad plans.
The next step was to create plans that looked the same as our acad plans, and it was a long way...
I needed a few projects before I got satisfied with what I could create with REvit, and it was quite fun to open the first files a few months after, since I had been using lots of weird workarounds for things I couldn't build right (for the worst: groups of thin floors and walls for louvers, instead of clean families with extrusions...)
When I was able to design and document a small project without any other software, I started a big one on REvit, and insisted, on latter phases, when my colleagues had to work with me to develop it, that we kept on building it with REvit, and we did it!
Now I'm starting to build a good template with all the nice stuff we've created in these different projects.
And I'm still learning and discovering, day after day.