Now that you have a solid working knowledge of the Autodesk® Revit® interface and you understand how it differs from most other drafting applications, it's time to move on to creating the Revit model.
The first chapter had you add some exterior walls to the model, and this chapter will expand on that concept. You'll also be placing some of the components, such as doors, that were introduced in Chapter 1, “The Autodesk Revit World.” Revit is only as good as the families that support the model.
To kick off the chapter, I'll focus on the accurate placement of interior and exterior walls. You also have a lot to learn about the properties of walls and how to tackle tricky areas where the walls just won't join together for you.
In Chapter 1, you placed some walls and then added exterior walls to the model. In this section, you'll add more walls to the model. Although adding walls to the model isn't difficult, you need to explore how to control these walls when adjacent items start moving around and corners get fussy. Also, I'll present proven methods to ensure accuracy so that I can keep you from starting down the wrong path.
To continue with the perimeter of the building from Chapter 1, let's add some more exterior walls. The first few walls you added to the model were pretty basic in terms of layout. It would be nice to have only square geometry! The reality is you're going to encounter walls at different angles and dimensions to which you can't just line up other walls. To get around this, you'll add what are called reference planes to help lay out the building. At the end of this section, your building's perimeter will look like Figure 2.1.
FIGURE 2.1 The footprint of your completed building
The objective of the next set of procedures is to establish some strong working points and then add walls along those guidelines. You'll also use these rules to make the necessary adjustments later in the section.
Reference planes are construction lines that you can place in your model to establish centerlines and to use as an aid for symmetrical geometry. If you add a reference plane in one view, it will appear in another. If you add one in a plan view, you can see that same plane in an elevation. This approach is a great way to build using a common reference. Also, reference planes, by default, don't plot.
The only drawback to reference planes is that they suffer from overuse. Try to use them only as what they are: a reference. To practice using reference planes, follow these steps:
NER‐02.rvt
in the Chapter 2
directory, which you can download from the book's website at www.wiley.com/go/revit2020ner
. (You can also use your own building if you choose.)FIGURE 2.2 The Ref Plane command is on the Architecture tab's Work Plane panel on the Ribbon.
FIGURE 2.3 You can grip‐edit reference planes to the required length.
FIGURE 2.4 Offsetting a reference plane
FIGURE 2.5 Reference planes are used here to aid in the placement of walls.
Let's add some more walls. To do so, follow along with the next set of steps. (Before you start, here's a tip: Revit likes you to draw in a clockwise direction. That means that if you set your walls to finish face exterior and model in a clockwise direction, your wall will be in the correct orientation. If you model it counterclockwise, the wall will be inside out. To fix this, you simply hit the spacebar as you're drawing the wall, and that will flip the wall into the proper orientation.)
FIGURE 2.6 Drawing a single wall from a defined starting point
FIGURE 2.7 The two walls drawn here are 30′ (9000 mm) from inside finish face to inside finish face.
FIGURE 2.8 Allow Revit to guide you in the placement of walls.
FIGURE 2.9 Draw a radial wall using the Start‐End‐Radius Arc method.
FIGURE 2.10 The building up to this point
FIGURE 2.11 The Pick Lines icon lets you add a wall by using an offset from another object.
FIGURE 2.12 Adding a wall using the built‐in offset function may take a few tries to get the method down.
FIGURE 2.13 The walls in an incomplete state
So, kind of a mess! It would be cool if Revit joined these walls the way you want, but that would, I'm afraid, be too much to ask. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it does not. By using the Trim command, you can clean up those overlapping corners and fill the gaps by simply selecting the walls you want joined together. There's one major thing to remember here: select the walls on the side you want to keep, not the side you want to trim away.
To get started, follow along:
FIGURE 2.14 The Trim command is your new best friend.
Your walls should look like Figure 2.16.
FIGURE 2.15 Using the Trim command to join the corners
FIGURE 2.16 The walls are now clean.
FIGURE 2.17 Adding another reference plane to our model
FIGURE 2.18 Adding the new walls requires picking the outside face of this wall. Make sure Offset is set to 15′–0″ (4500 mm) on the Options bar.
FIGURE 2.19 By using the Offset command as you draw walls, you can use one common centerline.
FIGURE 2.20 The completed walls for the south side of the building
Your walls should look like Figure 2.20.
Interior walls are basically the same as exterior walls in terms of how they're placed in the model. This is a good thing. Luckily, you can be slightly more relaxed with the justification. Now that the building has a footprint, you can see more easily whether the walls need to be adjusted.
You'll start by laying out an elevator shaft and a stairwell, using an 8″ (200 mm) CMU wall system. Follow these steps:
FIGURE 2.21 Start drawing the 8″ (200 mm) CMU elevator shaft in the corner indicated here. Turn on Thin Lines if you need to.
FIGURE 2.22 The elevator shaft begins to take shape.
At this point, you have some walls in the model. It's time to look at ensuring that these walls are accurately placed, so you need to check the dimensions.
After you place items in a model, you usually need to make some adjustments. Revit does a good job with this; however, there are some rules to which you need to adhere. The goal here is to have a clear 10′–0″ (3000 mm) dimension on the inside faces of the shaft. At this point, you should assume that you don't. This is where temporary dimensions come into play. To start working with temporary dimensions, follow these steps:
FIGURE 2.23 Temporary dimensions can be adjusted to measure from different wall faces by picking the witness‐line grip.
Revit measures the default dimension for the temporary dimensions from the center of the walls—which is typically the last place from which you want to take the dimension. You can change some settings to fix this action:
FIGURE 2.24 The selected wall is the wall that will move when you type the new dimension.
FIGURE 2.25 The Temporary Dimensions function lets you control where Revit measures the temporary dimensions.
You need one more shaft wall to create a separation between the exterior walls and the shaft, as shown in Figure 2.28. Perform these steps:
FIGURE 2.26 The most popular configuration for temporary dimensions
FIGURE 2.27 You can make temporary dimensions permanent.
FIGURE 2.28 The shaft wall
The next task is to mirror these walls to the other side:
FIGURE 2.29 The Mirror ➣ Pick Axis command is activated when you have objects selected.
You're starting to get the hang of adding different wall types—but you aren't finished yet. You still need to add quite a few interior partitions.
FIGURE 2.30 The elevator shaft is now mirrored.
You'll probably be placing a lot more interior walls than exterior walls. Given the dimensional nature of placing these types of walls in Revit, you don't need to bother with reference planes as often as when you place the exterior walls.
Knowing that, creating interior partitions is somewhat easier than creating the exterior variety. With the exterior type, you must place partitions carefully, and constant double‐checking is crucial. With interior partitions, you can typically get the wall where you think you need it. You can then go back and make adjustments without disturbing too many adjacent items. Not that you have to do it this way—you can be accurate to begin with—but life is all about second chances!
To start adding interior partitions, you'll add the necessary lavatories and egress and then fill the spaces with offices. When completed, this stage will look like Figure 2.31.
FIGURE 2.31 The east side of the building with egress and lavatories
The objective of the next procedure is to begin adding interior partitions:
FIGURE 2.32 Choosing options should be old hat by now! The Start‐End‐Radius Arc button is at the upper right on the Ribbon.
FIGURE 2.33 Drawing an arched radial wall requires a three‐point method. It's similar to the Start‐End‐Direction command in AutoCAD.
FIGURE 2.34 Editing the wall joins using grips
You now need to add some corridor walls. You can do this using the center reference plane you established earlier:
FIGURE 2.35 Drawing corridor walls using an offset can be a great timesaver.
FIGURE 2.36 Completing the main corridor. You still might have to drag the walls together to join them.
The next step is to add the lavatories. These will show up at the west end (left side) of the building. Refer to Figure 2.37 for the dimensions, and follow along:
FIGURE 2.37 The lavatories at the west side of the building
FIGURE 2.38 Both the men's and women's lavatories
You now need another corridor running north and south, as shown in Figure 2.39. The best way to approach this task is to add another reference plane and then add the walls in a fashion similar to the method applied to the east/west corridor. To open up the central area, you'll add 45° walls at 4′–0″ (1200 mm). Follow these steps to add the new walls:
FIGURE 2.39 This is the finished corridor layout.
You've created an area in the middle of the building where four walls intersect each other. You can now add 45° walls there to open the corridor at this area, as shown in Figure 2.40.
FIGURE 2.40 The corridor with the 45° walls added
FIGURE 2.41 Adding yet another reference plane to the model. You'll delete this one.
After you establish the reference plane, you can add the new wall. It can be as simple as drawing the wall in, but there are still a few little procedures of which you should be aware:
FIGURE 2.42 Adding the 45° wall
The next task is to mirror the walls. This part will be easy because you put in those reference planes:
FIGURE 2.43 Using the Mirror command in conjunction with a reference plane is a good example of thinking ahead.
FIGURE 2.44 Stuck inside these four walls
Now it's time for some further cleanup. Although all the modify commands will be featured in Chapter 4, “Working with the Autodesk Revit Tools,” you can still use some here. You've already borrowed the Mirror command from that chapter. You might as well borrow the Split command too:
FIGURE 2.45 Using the Split Element command
FIGURE 2.46 Split the wall at two points. If you've selected Delete Inner Segment, the result is to eliminate the wall between the two points.
FIGURE 2.47 The open corridor
Looking back, you've accomplished quite a bit. Laying out walls and then modifying them to conform to your needs is a huge part of being successful in Revit, but you aren't finished. The next few processes will involve dealing with different types of walls that merge together. Historically, merging walls has been an issue in modeling software. Although Revit tends to clean up these areas a little better than other modeling applications, you must still cope with some sticky areas. Let's create a sticky situation!
A separate function in Revit deals with editing wall joins—specifically, the Edit Wall Joins command, which can come in quite handy. To get started, let's add more walls to an already busy corner of the building:
FIGURE 2.48 The northeast corner
FIGURE 2.49 Adding to the mess in the corner
FIGURE 2.50 The wall and the resulting intersection
FIGURE 2.51 Click the Thin Lines icon to see how the walls are joining together.
FIGURE 2.52 You'll find the Wall Joins button on the Modify tab.
FIGURE 2.53 Choosing the intersection you wish to edit
After you pick the intersection, some additional lines appear. These lines expose how Revit is actually looking at the corner.
FIGURE 2.54 Adding a mitered join
Although a wall of this type would never have a 45° miter in real life, mitering the corner in Revit allows for a more uniform join between adjacent walls.
Usually, in a plan view such as this no wall joins are shown. Typically only the outside lines join, and an enlarged detail would show the specific construction methods. But in some cases, you want Revit to reveal this information. In Revit, you have two choices for the display (Figure 2.55):
Clean All Wall Joins This option joins together the same materials in each wall, regardless of the wall type.
Clean Same Type Wall Joins Stating the obvious, this option clean joins only within walls of the same type.
The Wall Display option is not selectable unless the detail level is set to Coarse.
FIGURE 2.55 Choosing a display option
The objective of the next procedure is to identify the difference between wall join types:
You must deal with another important item when walls join together. In some cases, you may not want walls to join automatically even if they're the same exact wall type. To learn how to prevent this behavior, follow along:
FIGURE 2.56 Choosing a Wall Join Display option in the view's properties
FIGURE 2.57 By right‐clicking the wall's end grip, you can tell Revit to disallow that wall's join function.
FIGURE 2.58 Slide the wall back to abut the adjacent wall.
FIGURE 2.59 Allowing the walls to join back up again
As mentioned earlier, your ability to edit wall joins can determine how quickly you start either liking or disliking Revit. This book took a few extra steps in the effort of joining walls, but the experience will carry through, project after project.
We need to investigate one more area before we leave this corner: the area within the chase. Suppose you don't want to run the gypsum into this area. This is a common situation that can cause people to have fits with Revit. Let's try to avoid those fits right now!
A plan view is simply a section taken 4′–0″ (1200 mm) up the wall from the finish floor. In Revit, you can manually edit the profile of any wall cut in plan. This is extremely useful if, for example, you need to take sections of drywall out of specific areas without creating or adding an entirely new wall. To do this, perform the following steps:
FIGURE 2.60 Pull the CMU out of the wall, disallow the join, and then drag it back into the face of the stud.
FIGURE 2.61 Click the Cut Profile button, and select the gypsum.
FIGURE 2.62 This line indicates where the wallboard will be cut. The blue arrow indicates the side of the material that will remain.
FIGURE 2.63 Clicking Finish Edit Mode finalizes the session and completes the command.
Go through and do the same thing to the south side of the building, starting at the Edit Wall Joins section.
There are many more walls left to add, but we need to save something for Chapter 4. At this point, it sure would be nice to start adding some doors and windows to the model.
FIGURE 2.64 The finished wall with the drywall deducted from the core of the chase
Adding doors and windows is one of the easiest things you'll do in Revit. Finding the correct door or window becomes a bit harder. Creating a custom door or window takes time and patience. In this section, you'll focus on adding these items to the model. Chapter 16, “Creating Families,” will drill down into the specifics of creating custom families.
Placing a door in Revit can seem annoying and unnecessarily tedious at first. But like anything else in Revit, once you get the method down you'll find your groove. Follow these steps:
Doors
directory, then to the Commercial
directory.Door‐Passage‐Single‐Flush.rfa
.FIGURE 2.65 Adding a door
FIGURE 2.66 Placing a door always requires a host. Remember, you can press the spacebar to change the orientation and move your cursor up and down to flip the direction.
Notice that when the door is placed, a tag appears with an automatic number. This happens when Tag On Placement is activated on the Tag panel in the Modify | Place Door tab. In Revit, after you place a door you should press Esc twice and then go right back and select the door. Doing so highlights the door and activates a few different options. Follow these steps:
FIGURE 2.67 Changing the temporary dimension
Let's concentrate on the tag now. The number contained within the “box” is an instance parameter. That means each door in the model will contain a unique number. When you place a door, this number will be added automatically. Revit knows not to duplicate this number. As each door is placed, Revit will assign the next sequential number to the door. This number, of course, can be changed.
Follow along with the next exercise to see how to manipulate the door number:
Let's keep going. It would be nice if all the doors we needed for a project were in our model and we didn't need to keep loading them. We could do that, but I have never worked at a firm that used only a few different types of doors for every project.
FIGURE 2.68 Click Load Family on the Mode panel.
Doors
directory, navigate to the Commercial
directory, select Door‐Passage‐Double‐Flush.rfa
(M_Double‐Flush.rfa
), and click Open.FIGURE 2.69 Placing the double doors
You need to add more doors and interior partitions, but they will be best suited for Chapter 4, where you can be more accurate. In the meantime, let's add some simple openings.
FIGURE 2.70 Adding lavatory doors. You'll have to renumber the tags.
I like to think of openings as doors in a sense. That is, you still need to insert something into a wall to create a void. This void can contain casing as well.
To add an opening to the model, run through these steps:
Openings
directory.
FIGURE 2.71 Clicking Component on the Architecture tab
Passage Opening‐Elliptical Arch.rfa
(M_Passage Opening‐Elliptical Arch.rfa
), and click Open.FIGURE 2.72 Adding a new type
FIGURE 2.73 Two new corridor doors
Add two more doors, and you'll be finished with this section:
Again, there are many more doors and partitions that you can add to the model, but that will have to wait until Chapter 4. Let's move on to add some windows.
FIGURE 2.74 Two new corridor doors
Doors, windows, openings … they're all the same. When you have experience adding one, the others are just as easy.
The objective of the next procedure is to add some windows to the model:
FIGURE 2.75 Adding a window is the same as adding a door.
FIGURE 2.76 Depending on which side of the wall your cursor is on, you can add a window to the correct orientation.
2
′‐0
″,(51 mm)
as shown in Figure 2.78.
FIGURE 2.77 Dragging the grip on the temporary dimension to the outside face of the exterior wall
FIGURE 2.78 Make the window 2′‐0″ (51 mm) from the face of the exterior wall.
FIGURE 2.79 Placing the windows in the corner of the building and mirroring them
Now that the windows are in place, it's time to investigate how they're built by taking a look at their properties.
Again, just as with doors and openings, you can check the element properties to tweak the unit even further:
FIGURE 2.80 Changing the tag to read “A“
FIGURE 2.81 The Edit Type button in the Properties dialog
FIGURE 2.82 Changing a type parameter changes every window of that type.
Windows are among the most difficult items in Revit to use out of the box without any real customization. In Chapter 16, we'll dive into creating custom Revit windows. For now, however, remember the lessons learned in this chapter. They will go a long way.