The default coordination workflow for most US architecture firms still runs on Autodesk's proprietary file formats: Revit (RVT) as the authoring format, NWC/NWD as the Navisworks coordination export, and DWG for anything that needs to move outside the Autodesk ecosystem. It works — when every discipline consultant is on Revit and everyone has current Navisworks licenses. Those conditions are increasingly not the baseline, and the architecture firms that have not built format-agnostic coordination workflows are creating friction with their consultant ecosystems that manifests as coordination delays.
IFC — Industry Foundation Classes, the open data schema maintained by buildingSMART International — is not new. IFC2x3 was the de facto standard for international BIM exchange through most of the 2010s. IFC 4.0 and the current IFC 4.3 release have substantially improved the schema's handling of MEP systems, infrastructure elements, and parametric geometry. What has changed recently is the tooling: IFC export quality from Revit, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks, and Tekla has improved enough that IFC-based coordination is practically viable for most commercial project types, not just government-mandated European projects.
The Real Problem with RVT-Only Coordination
The issue is not ideological — it is practical. RVT-only coordination requires every discipline consultant to be on Autodesk Revit. In US commercial practice, structural engineering firms on larger projects often use Tekla Structures for their detailed engineering, exporting to Revit for coordination. Smaller MEP consulting firms, particularly mechanical-only shops, may be on AutoCAD MEP or even 2D AutoCAD with 3D modeling contracted separately. Civil and site disciplines typically work in Civil 3D.
Each of these firms needs to produce a Revit-compatible coordination model. That process — typically a Revit link of an IFC import, or a manually maintained Revit model that shadows the native authoring model — introduces a synchronization lag. The structural engineer updates their Tekla model, then has to manually propagate significant changes to the coordination Revit model. That lag means the Revit-based federated model that the BIM Coordinator is running clash detection against may not reflect the current state of the structural design.
The IFC approach sidesteps this by making each discipline's native tool the source of truth. Tekla exports IFC directly. ArchiCAD exports IFC directly. Revit exports IFC. The coordination platform ingests IFC from all disciplines without requiring every consultant to maintain a parallel Revit model.
IFC Export Quality: Where Things Stand
The criticism of IFC exchange has historically centered on export quality: Revit's IFC exporter had a reputation for producing geometry that was correct in RVT but degraded when exported — lost families, incorrect type assignments, merged geometry that should be separate elements. That criticism was accurate through Revit 2020. The IFC exporter has improved materially in Revit 2022 and later releases, particularly for structural elements and MEP systems when the correct export settings are configured.
The key settings in Revit's IFC export that most teams misconfigure:
- IFC version selection: IFC 4 (not IFC2x3) for any coordination that needs to interoperate with non-Autodesk platforms. IFC 4 has better support for Revit families with complex parametric geometry.
- Export category mapping: the IFC export map must be explicitly configured to assign correct IFC entity types to Revit categories. Defaults are reasonable but not optimal — particularly for MEP systems, where Revit's category structure does not map cleanly to IFC's system hierarchy without manual mapping.
- Geometry mode: "Use Family Geometry" rather than "Use Mapped Item" for structural and MEP exports. This preserves element-level geometry rather than flattening to a tessellated mesh, which matters for clash detection because tessellated geometry can produce false clearance clashes at element boundaries.
With these settings properly configured, Revit IFC exports are reliable enough for coordination use on commercial projects. The remaining gaps are primarily in complex curtain wall systems and adaptive component families — categories that are edge cases for coordination purposes anyway.
What IFC Still Does Not Handle Well
Honest assessment requires acknowledging where IFC exchange still introduces friction. Parametric relationships are not preserved across IFC exchange — the relationship between a structural beam and its embedded connection plates in Tekla becomes dumb geometry in the receiving IFC viewer. This means that IFC-based coordination cannot perform parametric clash analysis: evaluating whether a conflict can be resolved by adjusting a parameter rather than relocating an element. For most coordination purposes this is acceptable — the coordinator cares about the physical conflict, not the parametric relationship. But for structural-MEP coordination where depth adjustments to a beam family could resolve a conflict without a full beam relocation, the loss of parametric context is a real limitation.
Additionally, BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) issue exchange — buildingSMART's open standard for coordination markup — is supported in major IFC viewers like Solibri and BIMcollab, but is less deeply integrated into US architecture firm workflows than native Navisworks viewpoint-and-issue tracking. This is a market maturity gap that will narrow, but it is the current practical tradeoff.
The Format-Agnostic Coordination Setup
A format-agnostic coordination workflow does not mean abandoning Revit or Navisworks. It means the coordination platform can ingest from multiple formats, and that consultants are not required to produce Revit models if their native tool exports a reliable IFC. A typical configuration:
- Architectural team: Revit — export IFC 4 and NWC in parallel
- Structural: Tekla or Revit — export IFC 4
- MEP: Revit or AutoCAD MEP — export IFC 4
- Coordination platform: ingests both IFC and NWC; runs analysis on the unified federated model regardless of source format
The BIM Coordinator's process changes minimally. Federation, rule configuration, and clash detection are the same processes regardless of whether source files are IFC or NWC. The difference is that the MEP consultant on AutoCAD MEP no longer needs to hand-model a parallel Revit coordination model. That removes a recurring source of coordination lag and model quality risk.
Government and International Project Requirements
For firms working on government projects — federal, state, or municipal — IFC capability is increasingly a contractual requirement. The UK's mandate for open BIM on public sector projects has influenced procurement specifications globally. Several US federal agencies have piloted IFC-required deliverables; state DOTs in multiple states include IFC in their BIM requirements for infrastructure work.
Architecture firms that have not built IFC export competency face an increasing risk of being on the wrong side of these requirements. We are not saying every firm needs to rebuild around IFC for domestic commercial work with Revit-using consultants — native Revit coordination works well in that context. The point is that format-agnosticism in your coordination platform — the ability to ingest IFC when a consultant or project requires it — should be a baseline capability, not an optional upgrade.
Practical Steps for Getting There
For firms building IFC coordination capability without rebuilding their existing workflow:
- Configure and test your IFC exporter settings on a completed project before you need them in a live coordination round. Export the architectural model, ingest it in your coordination platform, compare element count and geometry against the RVT source. Identify any missing categories and adjust the export map before those gaps become coordination problems.
- Add IFC export to your consultant submission requirements in the BEP for new projects, alongside NWC. Require IFC 4, not IFC2x3. This gives you the option to coordinate via IFC with non-Revit consultants without forcing Revit consultants to change their process.
- Validate BCF compatibility with your coordination platform and your consultants' viewers. BCF issue exchange removes the need to email clash viewpoint screenshots and allows consultants to receive and respond to coordination issues directly in their native authoring tool. For firms with consultants who are already using Solibri or Tekla BIMsight, BCF integration is the efficiency gain that pays back the format transition investment.
The firms doing this well are not driven by philosophical commitment to open standards. They are driven by a consultant pool that has diversified beyond Revit, by international projects that require it, or by the operational cost of maintaining parallel models for non-Revit consultants over a 24-month project lifecycle. Format agnosticism is an infrastructure investment — the return is coordination cycle speed and consultant friction that compounds over every project where you have a non-Revit discipline on the team.