topic Re: Multi building project best practice in Revit Architecture Forum

Multi building project best practice

ryley.g.h — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 20:48:25 GMT

If working on a single site where 3 buildings are being constructed, what would be the best practice for linking all the files together within an office, so multiple people can work on the project?

I’ve thought of 2 possibilities:

A single central model, where every building is modeled together.
1. This isn’t great because the model will be slow
A central model for the site, and linking 3 other central files (one for each building) onto the site file
1. Is this even possible?

Re: Multi building project best practice

SteveKStafford — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 21:03:22 GMT

Separate models for each building and site with worksharing enabled for each. This will allow you to link the buildings to the site model for real world positioning. Look into Shared Coordinates to coordinate the site with a survey. You can also link each building model into the other buildings if they are close enough to worry about seeing a portion of their neighboring building in documentation.

Re: Multi building project best practice

pedro.hf.silva — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 21:03:47 GMT

Option 2 is better than option 1, though I would arrange the files like this:

a) One central file for sitework, terrain, sidewalks, internal paths / streets, gardens, etc. In this file I would link the (b) file, copy it 2 more times and position the copies correctly.

b) One central file for the building with only commom area modeled (by common área I mean halls, stairs, elevators and everything not private). In this file I would link, copy and position the (c) files.

c) Residential units: everything that repeats should be a link so, I would create a .rvt for each different residential unit and link them in the (b) file.

Hope it helps!

Re: Multi building project best practice

Redrunner92 — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 22:03:24 GMT

This sounds like a wonderfully streamlined way to set this up when considering that repeated spaces are convenient to place in their larger contexts as links. However, pragmatically speaking, is there a point when a collection of .rvt files gets too deep into Link-ception? Is there a case to make that three layers (site > building common space > multiple residential units) multiplied by multiple buildings (which would be the second layer) is more files than necessary?

I can see the size of a company weighing heavily in this discussion. A company with 50+ drafters could likely devote the manpower and organization of responsibilities needed to keep the three-layer approach effective, while a 12-person company might struggle to remain organized since likely each employee has their own set of projects. What do you think?

(Also, the original poster didn't mention their project is a residential project; multiple office buildings with, say, seven or more office layouts in each would increase the difficulty of organization greatly.)

Re: Multi building project best practice

SteveKStafford — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 22:10:26 GMT

I do not encourage anyone to go down the linked file path for unit repetition. Linked files degrade file open performance significantly and introduces far more complicated view by view management for each and every link. Groups are for Unit repetition.

Re: Multi building project best practice

Redrunner92 — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 22:20:07 GMT

Thanks for your feedback, Steve. I've been using Groups to multiply units within a space also, though I do not have much experience with multi-unit buildings so I have not dealt with pros and cons of the different methods. I can easily see your point about slowing performance, so that alone gives me confidence to continue using Groups. Your second point about making editing the units more difficult is also a great one to note.

Re: Multi building project best practice

SteveKStafford — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 22:38:24 GMT

Linked files are tempting because they are a easily recognizable technique from other software. Groups were specifically design and intended to deal with repetition like units. In Revit's world a model is intended to be a single model (if we ignore the reality of different disciplines and separate firms). This provides the greatest integration between objects (walls/doors/windows) and data (views/sheets/annotation). As soon as any of this is a separate file a significant penalty is incurred; slower to open the host file, tags and dimensions become fragile, view management is more complicated and individual element requirements for documentation are harder to overcome...to itemize a few.

Re: Multi building project best practice

ryley.g.h — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 00:14:42 GMT

Thanks for the info, this was pretty much what I wanted to do, but wasn't sure if linking multiple central files was feasible/possible.

Re: Multi building project best practice

pedro.hf.silva — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 00:51:07 GMT

@Redrunner92 I think the problem is not with files or workspace organization, actually, organization is the key benefit of the linkception way. The real problem comes from performance, as mentioned by @SteveKStafford , especially when working with BIM360.

We went the linkception (love the word) way and, as for project portfolio control and cutting off all rework not having it brings, we are wining. But the performance thing is starting to annoy the hell out of us.

I still believe working with links is the "correct" way. Especially when you consider company size (we deal with some 1200 project teams across our country/year) we desperately need control over our building’s portfolio. But there are lots of learning and lots of work to do before we can make it runs smoothly, oh yes.

Re: Multi building project best practice

aswain — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 15:52:03 GMT

Follow-up question on the linked model concept: are you documenting each building via sheets within each building file, or are you documenting the entire project in a single, master documentation file (this could be one of the building files, or even the site file)?

This is related to leveraging Revit's documentation tools (sheet index, legends, section/elevation links, etc.). The alternative is doing some PDF assembly on the back end--doable, but another step--so wondering what approach others have found the best success with.

Re: Multi building project best practice

SteveKStafford — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 16:48:25 GMT

@aswain wrote:

Follow-up question on the linked model concept: are you documenting each building via sheets within each building file, or are you documenting the entire project in a single, master documentation file (this could be one of the building files, or even the site file)?

Yes. Treat each building as a complete project. If sheets need to be compiled to submit an entire project at one time that's easy to do with PDF applications like Bluebeam, just manage the sheet numbering so each building has its own number sequence. Then IF the project gets split up for construction sequencing or financing the project is already prepared that way.

Re: Multi building project best practice

Alfredo_Medina — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 17:04:42 GMT

Hello, I just want to add something to this thead that I don't see it mentioned yet. For those of you who work with links and BIM360, be aware that an important limitation to keep in mind is that nested links disappear in BIM360. For example, if you have a link of a "floor" where you link "units" and then you link the "floor with units" into a "building", your units won't be visible in BIM360.

Re: Multi building project best practice

jannaHAYZ2 — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:50:15 GMT

Why Revit Groups Are a Poor Choice for Dwelling Units

Annotation drives effort, not geometry
Unit geometry just 1 move to copy; most labor is in annotation, verification, and coordination—areas where groups perform poorly.
Groups cannot contain complete documentation
Groups do not support views, callouts, details, or annotation. Linked units can contain model + views + annotations in one instance.
Severe performance impact
Grouped objects keep interacting with surrownding. Touching any element related to group forces regeneration of all group instances, often freezing Revit.
Limited control and overrides
Groups prevent filtering, graphic overrides, phasing control, and simultanious visibility adjustments.
Hosting and transformation issues
Mixed hosted elements (walls, doors, face-based families) restrict moving, mirroring, or adapting groups to real conditions.
High risk of corruption and instability
Groups are prone to glitches, broken constraints, and unpredictable behavior—especially at scale.
Poor interaction with levels and datums
Groups interact poorly with levels and other datums, making alignment, and coordination difficult and error-prone.
Budget-inefficient workflow
Time lost to fixing, regenerating, and troubleshooting groups dramatically increases project cost.

Preferred Approach

Use linked unit models as a reusable library across projects. Links are stable, performant, version-controlled, and allow complete units (model + views + annotation) to be coordinated and maintained with far higher quality and reliability across multiple projects.