rehab in revit - handout

Session 2.3

Rehab in Revit: Best Practices for RenovationsKelli Lubeley, Jones Lang LaSalle

Class DescriptionThis class will cover the main features of Revit that facilitate the modeling process for renovation work. Special focus will be given to Revit Phases and Phase settings for views, Design Options, and other tools for documenting existing conditions, demolition, and new construction.

Learning Objectives: Determine the necessity of modeling existing conditions and to what

level of development and detail existing conditions affect the construction documents and Revit workflow.

Use Revit Phases and Phase filters to correctly display existing to remain, demolished, and new construction on documents use Revit Design Options to present and document design options to the client, add alternates, and optional bid packages.

Learn tips and tricks for facilitating the workflow of renovation projects in the Revit environment

About the Speaker:Kelli Lubeley currently works as a Senior Product Support Specialist for JLL. Her current focus is on platform migration and client configurations. She has developed and instructed Revit courses at the community college and corporate level for over 7 years, and implemented Revit Architecture and MEP at multiple firms. She enjoys discovering new and evolving AEC technology and loves to constantly find new ways to leverage technology for the AEC community.

Contributing Author:Elizabeth Mierendorf currently works at Dewberry as a Senior Virtual Design Coordinator. As part of the Virtual Design Team, she has been involved in all aspects of Dewberry’s BIM implementation, primarily focusing on Architecture and Interior Design processes. Elizabeth is responsible for developing efficient BIM workflows, training all architectural staff, creating and maintaining Revit content, and providing support for all of Dewberry’s architectural offices.

Rehab in RevitKelli Lubeley, JLL

Displaying Construction Phasing

When working with renovation projects, Revit uses a combination of settings to control how elements are displayed in each view based on their creation and demolition status. Each element is set with a creation/demolition combination. Then each view uses a Phase Assignment along with a Phase Filter to determine how elements of a particular creation/demolition combination are displayed in a particular view. The important thing to remember when working with multiple phases is how Revit applies graphic overrides based on Phase filters. The overrides are applied relative to the phase. So if a view is set to Existing, the Show New filter displays elements created in the Existing phase as new and will apply whatever overrides are assigned to new for the Show New filter. Be aware that all phases prior to the current phase will fall under the Existing filter column on the Phase Filters tab of the Phase dialog. Revit does not have the ability to show future phases using the Phasing tools.

Let’s take a look at Phase and Phase Filter combinations and the graphics overrides they create.

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Phase: Existing Phase Filter: Show New

This setting displays only elements created in the Existing phase and displays them in their Object Styles default settings.

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Phase: New Construction Phase Filter: None

This setting displays all elements created in all phases up to the current phase and displays them in their Object Styles default settings.

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Phase: New Construction Phase Filter: Show Previous + Demo

This setting displays elements created in the Existing phase as halftone and elements demolished in the New Construction phase as dashed. New elements are not displayed.

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Phase: New Construction Phase Filter: Show Previous + Temporary (Custom)

This setting displays elements created in the Existing phase in halftone and elements created and demolished in the New Construction phase as blue dashed. New elements are not displayed. Note: This filter is only needed when temporary construction is needed on site for space separation and usage during construction.

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Phase: New Construction Phase Filter: Show Previous + New

This setting displays elements created in the New Construction phase in their Object Styles default settings and elements created in the Existing phase that are not demolished in the New Construction phase are displayed as halftone.

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Phase: New Construction Phase Filter: Show Complete

This setting displays elements created in the Existing and New Construction phases and displays them in their Object Styles default settings to display the finished construction with no distinction in phases. Demolished Elements and temporary elements will not be displayed.

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Design Options Revit’s Design Options feature allows you to develop or present designs within the same model. F0r our purposes, we are using Design Options to represent additional alternatives (add alts) or multiple bid packages in construction documents.

Creating a Design Option On the Manage tab, click the Design Options button.

In the Design Options dialog box, click the New button to create a new design option set.

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Click the New button under the Option heading to add additional options to the design option set. Rename the design option set to describe the area or reason for creating the set. Rename each design option to clearly indicate what differentiates that options from the others in the set. Click Close to return to the model.

Select all elements that are part of the design option set and all host elements (even if they may not be changing) for those that are part of the option set. Also select any rooms that will be affected by the design option set. Once all elements are selected, click the Add to Set button on the Manage tab.

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In the Add to Design Option Set dialog box, select the correct design option set from the Add selection to: menu. Check the boxes for all of the design options in the set. This will place a copy of each of the selected elements into each option. Click OK.

Once elements are added to a design option, you will not be able to select them while working in the main model. To modify them, click on the design option selection drop-down menu on the Manage tab and select the option you want to edit. Use the drop-down to select a non-primary option (in this case it will be Letters). We will keep the model as it is the primary option.

When you are editing an option, all elements except the ones in the active option will be halftone. Revise the option as needed. Use the design option drop down to select Main Model to exit the editing mode. Your view display the primary option.

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Changing an Option to a Primary Option To change which option is set as the primary for the design option set (and therefore showing up by default in all views), click on the Design Options button in the Modify tab of the ribbon. In the Design Options dialog, select the option to be the primary option. Click the Make Primary button. Click Close.

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Using Design Options to Display Additional Alternatives and Bid PackagesBy default, all views display the primary option. To display another option in a specific view, open the Visibility/Graphic Overrides dialog box by typing VV. Click on the Design Options tab. By default each design option set is set to <Automatic>. This means that your view will display the primary option, even if you change which option is primary. You can change this setting so that your view will show whatever option you prefer by default. Once you have selected the option you want to show up, click OK.

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By creating duplicate views and setting each view to one of the options, you can put all add alternates/bid packages in the construction documents.

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Using FiltersFilters can be a very useful tool for display control in addition to Phasing and Category settings. For the purpose of this example, we are going to use the scenario of showing all existing furniture, furniture systems, casework, and plumbing fixtures filled with a Diagonal up pattern on our floor plan. Start by opening the view that the filter is to be applied to. Open the Visibility/Graphics Override dialog. Click on the Filters tab. Select Edit/New… at the bottom of the dialog.

In the Filters dialog, click the New Filter button at the bottom left corner of the dialog.

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Enter a descriptive name for the new filter and click OK. We are going to call our example Existing to indicate that is only applies to existing elements.

In the Filters area of the dialog make sure that the new filter is highlighted. Next, in the Categories area of the dialog check all of the categories the filter will apply to. For this example we will check the categories Casework, Furniture, Furniture Systems, and Plumbing Fixtures.

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In the Filter Rules area of the dialog click on the drop down for Filter by: then select the parameter to filter the affected categories by. In this case we'll be using the parameter Comments.

Then, select a rule for the parameter. This selection will determine which elements of the selected categories will have the filter applied. For this example we are using begins with.

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Finally, define the information for the rule to apply to and click OK In our example we will use the text EX as an abbreviation for existing. Keep in mind that this text is case sensitive.

The information entered here combined with the Parameter, Categories, and rule make up the definition of the filter. So, in this example, Revit will apply the filter to all Furniture, Furniture Systems, Casework, and Plumbing Fixtures elements which the Comments parameter begins with the text EX. Now that the filter has been created, it needs to be added to the view. In the Visibility/Graphics Override dialog, In the Filters tab, click Add. In the Add Filters Dialog select the filter to add and click OK.

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With the filter added to the view, we can now apply the graphic override to the elements selected by the filter. Select the filter and make changes to the Projection/Surface and Cut Lines and Patterns as desired. In our example we are going to apply a Diagonal up pattern to both Projection/Surface and Cut objects. To add the Pattern click on the Override… button under the Patterns heading. In the Fill Pattern Graphics dialog, click the drop down for the Pattern and select Diagonal up. Click OK to apply the new override.

Click OK one more time to close the Visibility/Graphics Override dialog and apply the filter to the view.

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Finally, we must make sure the elements that are to be affected by the filter have the proper information so the filter applies to them. Select the object(s) to be affected and enter the information that was set in the creation of the filter. For our example, we will select the existing casework, furniture, furniture systems and plumbing fixtures and add the text EX to the beginning of the Comments parameter.

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The result of our example filter looks like this:

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The checkboxes next to the filter name can also be used to toggle the visibility of the elements that the filter applies to. Unchecking the Visibility checkbox will yield these results:

Remember that filters are view specific, so the filter applied to one view must be added and applied to any other views that need the same graphic representation.

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Move Management

Revit does not have an integrated solution for managing the relocation of furniture and equipment during a renovation project. There are many ways to create a solution for this. This will cover one solution used successfully across many projects.

Let’s look at an example where we have existing classroom furniture. The furniture located in classroom A will remain in classroom A. The furniture in classroom B will be removed from the site. The furniture in classroom C will be relocated to classroom D, which is being added to the building as part of the New Construction phase.

Because we want to use standard Revit methods as much as possible, the furniture from classroom C needs to be removed from its current location by assigning the furniture to be created in the Existing phase and demolished (removed from classroom C) in the New Construction phase. The demolition plan should look like this:

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Now that the furniture in classroom C has been demolished, it is no longer available to place in classroom D. I must place new furniture in classroom D.

Graphically, this is what we need, but it is creating duplicate information within Revit. To verify this, we can create a schedule of these elements. In each classroom, there are 30 student chairs, 30 student tables, 2 instructor tables, and 1 instructor chair. The schedule shows this:

Notice the totals for the tables and chairs. If we look at the New Construction plan, there are two classrooms with furniture. That should be 64 tables and 62 chairs, but the schedule shows 128 and 124, respectively. This is because schedules are also controlled by phasing.

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The Phase and Phase filter parameters make all the difference when it comes to furniture and equipment moves. It is critical to set these two parameters for the schedule based on which elements need to be included in the count.

Using the Show All filter will count the furniture in all four classrooms, meaning that numbers will be duplicated since C and D are the same pieces. Using Show Previous + Demo will count classrooms A, B, and C, giving the total existing, demolished, and moved pieces without duplicating the moved elements (Helpful for accounting for all elements as design progresses). Using Show Previous + New will count only classrooms A and D, giving totals for the final pieces remaining at the end of the project. This can be very helpful information, but let’s take it a step further.

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Coordination is extremely important when relocating furniture and equipment within a project. To provide another level of coordination within Revit, we will use filters to distinguish elements that are being relocated.

Select the existing elements to be relocated. In the Comments parameter, enter “RELO”

Repeat this process for the new elements that represent the relocated elements.

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Create a floor plan called Furniture Coordination. Set the Phase to New Construction and the Phase filter to Show All. This will display all elements, including those duplicated for the relocation process.

Create a new filter. Name the filter Relocated. Click OK.

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Check all categories the filter will apply to. Filter by Comments EQUALS and enter “RELO” in the box. Click OK.

In the Visibility/Graphics Override Dialog, click Add. Select the Relocated filter and click OK.

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Click the Override button under Patterns. Define the color as Green and set the pattern to Solid Fill. Click OK.

Click OK to close the Visibility/Graphics Override dialog. The plan now shows all elements with “RELO” in the Comments parameter as Green.

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Existing versus New elements in the relocation can be split into two separate filters by differentiating the Comments parameter and applying two filters to the view.

There are many different methods for coordinating move management within the Revit environment. This is one way that has been successful and hopefully inspirational to a method that will work for you.

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rehab in revit - handout

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