That’s precisely why we use Presto – every piece of information, every field, every element, and every data point can be properly structured, managed and controlled.
Carolina Ramírez, Architect & BIM Consultant
The Customer
Carolina Ramírez is a construction technology consultant specializing in the management and coordination of architectural, MEP, structural, cost and planning information through BIM models. She has worked in collaborative BIM environments since 2008 and holds Autodesk certification. She is also a certified RIB Presto trainer and a RIB Spain superuser.
The Mission
Ramírez conducted a presentation entitled, Stratos BIM in Projects with Presto, which demonstrates how a prior model auditing process forms part of workflow. Broadly speaking, her mission is to show that RIB Presto integrates with BIM models, whether Revit models or IFC models, creating a bi-directional link between the model and the cost estimate. This connection enables quantities and budgets to be generated automatically. This ultimately has a direct impact on the quality of the financial information we obtain for the project.
The Solution
Ramírez currently works at CRa-HUB, a Spanish company based in Madrid. It is a technical consultancy specializing in architecture, engineering, and BIM management. The company focuses on the development and coordination of digital models, using them as a strategic foundation for decision-making in complex projects. Their services include BIM consultancy, project management, and multidisciplinary coordination across architecture, MEP services, and structural engineering.
The Result
Her company’s work covers producing quantities and cost estimates, cost control, planning, model auditing, and, more broadly, managing all the information contained within BIM models. They have experience across a wide range of sectors, including data centers, pharmaceutical facilities, public buildings, refurbishment projects, and educational buildings. Essentially, it means that they work with a centralized database and a virtual model – it is the digital representation created in BIM that contains all the project information.
Simply put, what we are managing is essentially a list of elements.
Carolina Ramírez, Architect & BIM Consultant
Accurate, Structured, and Reliable Information for Better Control
Ramírez explains how their approach has changed from past methodologies. Previously, drawings would be produced, and from those drawings a 3D model would be created, while the cost estimate remained separate. This process has changed, beginning with a single, unified model. From this model, all the project information can be extracted: drawings, quantities, cost estimates, and specifications. In other words, the project is managed through a centralized data environment.
The information that exists in IFC or Revit, which is linked to the model’s geometry, is also available in RIB Presto, where it is structured and managed as a database. BIM models contain a large amount of structured information – it’s available for analysis, to make important project decisions.
From that list, each row represents a specific element. For example, one row might correspond to a basic brick wall, with its associated cost and a specific ID. That single entry represents one line within the list of elements. By taking all the rows that share the same material name, it effectively generates a database. Ramírez jokes that there’s nothing worse than having to take over someone else’s Excel spreadsheet. That’s precisely the reason she uses Presto: because every piece of information, every field, every element, and every data point can be properly structured, managed, and controlled.
She contrasts the ease of focusing on the underlying data when you see multiple doors, for example, on a 3D model versus having all those doors appear in a list – she can immediately see on the list if anything is missing or if there’s an error. For this reason, she prefers to move away from managing geometry directly and instead work with data and structured lists of elements. It’s easier to detect any issues and correct them quickly.
In the end, you have a list that controls the project, and in many ways also acts as a set of instructions – it becomes a living guide to manage all the information related to the project. With a clean list of project elements, it’s possible to assign a price to each of them, and that list then becomes the project cost estimate.
The next step is to assign a start and end construction date to the elements in that list, generating a project schedule. And if that same list of elements also contains operational information, such as maintenance data, then the result is a handover for facilities management.
Data cleaning is a key requirement before that information can be used – in a manner of speaking, you want to avoid the scenario of getting garbage out if you put garbage in. This can happen when you have incomplete or inconsistent information. You can inadvertently end up with a large amount of information in the model without even realizing it – information that may have been copied over or added without a clear purpose.
It’s advisable to include only the information that will be used in the model. What matters is that the information is accurate and reliable. It’s also important to carry out regular model audits. It can help remove unnecessary parameters before delivering the project. And to focus on standardization – that is to say, rely on existing classifications and established systems that have already been developed for structuring projects.
It becomes a ‘living manual’ that allows us to manage all the information related to the project.
Carolina Ramírez
How Presto Helped Deliver a Real-world Data Center Project
Ramírez shares how she has used RIB Presto in her day-to-day work to deliver projects where information truly adds value. This story is about a data center project developed for cloud infrastructure designed to store and manage large volumes of digital information.
It contained a high degree of complexity, particularly due to the extensive building services and technical installations involved. Tools like Presto, together with Revit, helped her manage these projects and deliver them in a very short timeframe.
The project included three data centers. All the elements and information contained in the model were managed as a structured database. This approach allowed Ramírez and her team to organize and control all the project information efficiently. They used BIM 360 and shared information with clients in Excel, but those spreadsheets were generated directly from the model and from Presto.
Each element was clearly identified: it was clear what it was, what it was made of, its quantities, and its dimensions. It meant they had the measurements and the project information fully linked and centralized. In this way, they could manage all the project data in a structured way. Each element was linked to a specific line in Presto – a single row in the database.
Decisions made early in the project have a much lower cost when taken during the design stage than when they are made later on-site. That is the reason for building a virtual prototype on a computer first, and only then replicating it, while managing all that project information throughout the process.
This project presented an interesting challenge in that it had been divided into several buildings, each developed in separate Revit files, resulting in inconsistencies. But by using Presto, they were able to standardize and unify all that information, bringing the data from the different models together into a single, consistent structure.
In the structural scope of the project, they were estimating a pile labeled “concrete pile”, but within the model the material assigned to it was steel, raising an obvious question: which one was correct? By analyzing and cross-checking the information, they were able to clarify the data. It turned out the piles were metallic. Without a tool like Presto, it would be almost impossible to detect this kind of discrepancy within the large amount of information contained in these models.
Ramírez explains that they based everything on that list of elements as it ultimately became the project cost estimate. This same set of information was then used to organize and manage all the elements within the project. In the end, they achieved technical and financial synchronization: every item that was budgeted had a real counterpart in the model. This approach removed much of the uncertainty that typically arises during construction, particularly when it comes to progresscertifications and procurement.
The project can be managed more effectively once that information is transferred into Presto, supporting tasks such as project scheduling and construction progress certifications.
So, the model communicates directly with the cost estimate, project schedule, and the construction process. It’s exactly clear what each element is, because everything has already been clearly defined. Nothing exists in the project that does not have a corresponding line in the list, which, in this case, becomes the cost estimate. That estimate also includes labor, machinery, materials, and ancillary resources, managing the full cost breakdown and composition of each price.
The model is directly connected to this cost estimate. In Presto, the cost estimate also works alongside the project schedule, because ultimately these are the same elements that need to be built. In this case, a cost item can be broken down into tasks according to their location in the building: for example, structural columns organized by level.
Ramirez explains that working with a simulation allows her to make informed decisions that help streamline the construction process. In this case, she was working with Revit connected to Presto, although the same workflow can also be done using IFC models as Presto supports without any issues.
We move from “I think this costs roughly this much” to “I know exactly what this costs and what I am paying for.” To achieve this, a clean model with the right level of information is essential.
Carolina Ramírez
The Architects of Information of the Future
In her BIM crystal ball, Ramírez sees her profession increasingly shifting towards becoming architects of information. She believes this because the models effectively function as a form of small-scale Big Data, containing a vast amount of structured project information. And Presto allows users to search, organize, and structure that information.
Recognizing the strategic value of model data was a turning point in how the team approached cost management. While architects traditionally focus less on budgets, the reality is that clients ultimately care about cost-certainty and financial viability.
Although many contractors remain cautious about relying on design models and often rebuild their own models to extract quantities, this workflow demonstrates that auditing and validating the information within the original model can provide reliable, trusted data for cost planning.
BIM model parameters imported into Presto can be audited and managed as structured data.
Shift from viewing the model purely as geometry to treating it as a strategic information resource.
Maintain a clean, organized list of project elements as it will become the foundation for reliable cost estimates.
Structured data allows teams to see the inner workings of a project, improving transparency, and decision-making.
Many contractors distrust design models and so, recreate their own models to extract quantities.
An alternative approach is to audit and validate the original model data in Presto, avoiding duplication while ensuring reliable cost information.
Ramírez believes that auditing BIM models is a critical step before relying on them for cost estimation. It’s ideal for contractors to be involved early with the design team to help shape a model with real construction logic, but not always possible. In those cases, the first step is to appreciate that a model exists and then begin systematically auditing it to ensure every element is correctly defined and linked to the appropriate cost line.
This process involves verifying what each element represents and ensuring the information reflects construction reality. Common issues discovered during audits include duplicated elements, incorrectly placed objects (such as equipment positioned at the wrong level), or materials that do not match their descriptions. Rather than simply generating a budget from the model at the click of a button, the real value of BIM lies in reviewing, correcting and managing the information first – that way the resulting cost estimate is based on verified and trustworthy data.
For Ramírez, the goal is to remove many of those routine tasks and make better use of the information already available. In this era of artificial intelligence and Big Data, ultimately all of this data exists to support better decision-making.
We need to become what I call Architects of Information or people who collect, search, clean, and manage data, so that it becomes a reliable project database.
