Old Cottage Walls

[IMCornish]

We do a lot of conservation work to old buildings, mostly dwellings, but larger buildings also.  My issue is how to draw the existing, surveyed, walls which inevitably do not conform to the beautiful straight lined walls with parallel faces we are used to in more modern construction.

See the illustration below which shows the floor plan of a typical surveyed cottage:

Can anyone tell me how this can be done?  I thought I might be able to achieve it with extrusions but I am unable to convert each section to wall elements.  With 'In Place Masses' only nice straight wall types can be created from the mass faces.

I should be very pleased if it is possible

[Alfredo_Medina · Accepted solution]

How about creating the walls as a single model-in place object, wall category? That would allow you to have hatch pattern, doors, windows, rooms, etc. For any change in the wall layout, you would use "Edit in place".

[IMCornish]

Thanks for coming back so quickly.  Have you used an extrusion based on the footprint of the walls to create your inplace model?

I have tried this and came up aginst the issue of gable walls.  I assume you would use void forms?

If there is no other way then I believe this to be the answer, thanks Alfredo 

[Alfredo_Medina]

Yes, the mass/wall is created by a simple extrusion of the footprint of the walls. For gables, yes, you would need to either add some volume, or make the walls taller and subtract some volume, all this within "Edit In-place". If this solves the issue, please mark the previous post as the solution.

[IMCornish]

Thanks Alfredo.  Yes I am happy to mark your reply as the solution but I am left a little disappointed, not because I had really answered the question myself but because I believe Revit should have a better solution, more in line with creating walls in the normal way.  The solution smacks of a workaround whichever way you look at it and requires more work, but at least there is a solution.

Thanks again.

[IMCornish]

I find that I need to refer to this topic once more.  I have used the extrusion method quite sucessfully but find that the following issues arise and make its use a little unsatisfactory:

Firstly, the addition of a window will, in some cases, view the whole extrusion plan as one solid, ignoring the internal space, and the opening will go through the correct wall and also the wall behind it.

Secondly, you cannot apply paint to its surfaceor split its surface.

Thirdly, a window or door added in the 'New Construction' phase creates an opening in the 'As Existing' construction, albeit with an absent window or door.  I have tried infilling such 'ghost' openings with conventional walls that are 'demolished' in the new construction phase and this works but you cannot hide their outlines in elevations, though a joining of them to the extruded mass walls does a reasonable job of hiding the opening in plan.

Anyone know any workarounds or solutions to these issues please? 

[Anonymous]

Andrew,

Glad to here you've tried this method for modelling historic buildings.

Regarding your issue with cutting the existing model with a door/window leaving an opening in the existing phase.  I would recommend creating an intermediate phase, i.e. demolition.  Within this phase I would suggest duplicating the existing in-place mass.  The original is demolished at this point and the duplicate is used for the proposed.

This method allows you to view the original existing plans, that are unaffeted by the proposed changes, and allows you to cut up the duplicate as necessary as they are two seperate entities.

Regarding your split face issue.  You will need to edit the inplace mass to split the face and apply paint materials.

Regarding the windows split, I tend to have the window family opening be a void, rather than an opening, as this provides better flexibility and control.

Hope this helps, I've typed it in a rush, so I hope it all makes sense.

Regards,

Kevin