There are a lot of ways to create your 3d modeling and almost everybody have their own way and technique of creating the same model. In architectural visualization, there are a few modeling types every illustrator needs to master in 3DS Max.These are spline, shapes and meshes, although there are others namely NURBS, patches, they all cater for other industry, but a basic understanding of these modeling techniques will be useful in other parts of your 3d scene.
The basic foundation of every 3D scenes are the line works, which are provided by the architects or other design professional, in the form of hand-drawn plans or 2D Autocad drawings.
From there, it is digitized to form a spline or shapes, that can be used in the creation of primitives, compound objects, and other object that will complete the scene.
Some also prefer to model the scene in AutoCAD and export to 3DS max for the texturing, lighting, and rendering.
There are no basic rule to follow, whether using autocad or a 3D software, as long as you are able to produce the required output.Since designers are used to the precision drawings of autoCAD, it's no surprise that some illustrator engage in setting up the all the massing and modeling part in AutoCAD to take advantage of its accuracy in the 3D creation, and exporting them for rendering in 3DS Max later