Duplicate Internal Dwelling Types with Different External Wall Designs

[jasmin_dooley]

So, we are doing a large housing development site with 74 plots and 10 dwelling plan types. There are mostly semi-detached houses, but some terraces of 3 and a couple of stand-alone detached houses. There is also a block of 4 flats which is only a 2 storey building. 

We are working on construction stage not planning and so all the plots need to have accurate drawings, and because there are repeat house types we need to ensure that when we complete one, we can copy it (almost like a block in CAD) into another Revit file so it stays the same. 

The external walls for each block are different, in that some have patches of render/cladding in different locations even though the internal floor plans may be the same house type. 

Is there an efficient way of keeping the internal type layouts as one element that can be copied into each Revit file efficiently? Because I've been trying groups but even though I only have the internal walls & doors in the group, when I copy it into the next file it keeps trying to paste the external walls too which I don't want. 

Please, can someone help me or advise what the most efficient and user-friendly way of working with this will be. 

Thank you 🙂

[jasmin_dooley]

Please note the following:

• Revit 2019
• 11 Dwelling types; 10 house types and 1 flat type
• In the UK not America by the way (in case terminology isn't clear)
• Not using a Revit Site Plan to link each house into
• House = House
• Block = Multiple dwellings that are semi-detached or terraces or flats

[Anonymous]

| would suggest doing the internal walls separately and linking that into each house type.  Create a set of reference planes that define the internal boundary of the houses so that you can position into the external wall types.

[jasmin_dooley]

So draw reference planes around the internal side of the external perimeter while grouping the internals and then copying them both into the next file?

[Anonymous]

Create a separate model that only contains the internal walls.  This can then be linked into the different external types, which will only contain the external walls for that type.

I am assuming that you will do a different set of plans for each house type?

[jasmin_dooley]

So at the moment, we have a file for each of the 36 blocks on the site, which will have the floor plans and elevations and sections etc all noted ans sheeted up.

So we currently have 36 Revit files - one for each block. My colleague is currently working up a block for each plan type so we have the 11 plan types confirmed, and then once he's done it's my task to copy them out into their respective blocks and ensure that those blocks have the specific external wall finishes and window styles as per the planning design. 

So to ensure I'm not undoing his work, I don't think the linked internal walls plan would work for this task. But moving forward on other jobs I'll try this method. Will the grouping be ok for now? Because I did try copying a group into another Revit file and it tried to paste external walls - even though they weren't a part of the group. Is it because the internal walls try to join external walls? I don't fully understand why Revit tries to do its own thing.

[barthbradley]

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@jasmin_dooley wrote:

Is there an efficient way of keeping the internal type layouts as one element that can be copied into each Revit file efficiently? Because I've been trying groups but even though I only have the internal walls & doors in the group, when I copy it into the next file it keeps trying to paste the external walls too which I don't want. 

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This doesn't make any sense.  You say that your group contains only internal walls and doors, yet when you place an instance of the group it keeps trying to paste the external walls.   Something strange is going on here.  Can you describe your workflow to create the group?  

[jasmin_dooley]

So this is the process so far:

We did planning stage in CAD so we had all the floor plans in CAD.

These then need putting into Revit so my colleague created a Revit file for each block for the site and traced the CAD plans, but then adjusted them to suit brick dims so they're accurate. 

Then I was tasked with going into one block and sheeting them up and annotating them and making sure they all complied with building regs. 

I noticed that there were a lot of repeat internal layouts (types) across the site. So I elected to group the internal walls, internal doors, furniture, bathroom & kitchenware, floors, ceilings, stairs & rooms. I didn't group external walls, or windows because these are changing across the different blocks on the site. 

Also to note that within the group the ground and first floor were all in one group.

So when this one block I was working on was complete, I decided to copy one of the internal layouts (type D of the site) and paste it into one of the other Revit files - other blocks on the site.

But when I pasted it a load of warnings came up in the bottom corner and also some external walls tried to paste as well. Even though no external walls were selected.