Provide an Option to Preserve the Door Opening Instead of Automatically In-Filling When a Door is Demolished

[luis7SJJ3]

In many real-world refurbishment projects, when a door is removed from an existing wall, the resulting opening is often retained—or filled in a way that differs from the original wall construction. In Revit, however, demolishing an existing door automatically triggers an “infill” behavior that closes up the opening with the original wall type. This is both unrealistic and irreversible, forcing users to accept an unwanted wall patch.

In actual practice, once a door is removed, the opening may remain as-is, be filled with a different wall type, or be repurposed in other ways. Having Revit automatically restore the original wall type is counterproductive and does not reflect typical site operations. It also removes the ability to keep a true opening without cumbersome workarounds.

Proposed Solution

1. User-Controlled Infill Settings

   • Provide a setting (at either the project or element level) that allows users to choose whether an opening should remain or be automatically infilled when an existing door is demolished.
   • Let users specify which wall type (if any) is used to fill the opening.

2. Flexible Phase Behavior

   • When a door is demolished in the Existing phase, give the user the option to leave the opening intact or fill it with a new wall.
   • If the user wants to keep the opening or place a different wall, Revit should not force the infill to match the original wall type.

3. Better Alignment with Real-World Workflows

   • This change would more closely mirror actual construction processes, saving time and effort in creating workarounds or re-modeling openings.
   • It would also provide clearer phasing documentation and more accurate takeoffs for demolition and new work.

By introducing a user-defined or project-wide “Preserve Opening” setting, Revit’s demolition workflow would become more flexible and realistic, significantly improving modeling efficiency for renovation and refurbishment projects.

[pieter1]

Yeah...we're as surprised as you are probably 😉

It's great to have former Archicad users here chiming in as well, brings new perspectives to the table.

[tariqallaham]

Why to have an automatic filling at all?

Revit would not auto-fill openings in floor and roof from a demolished shaft. So why does it auto-fill openings from demolished door and windows?

In real life the most wall openings are not filled with the same structure as the original wall.

Auto-fill in demolished openings in walls should have been taken off as an automatic reaction. Instead it should be replaced with an option to adapt/adjust/fit new walls and structural frames to remaining openings.

[tariqallaham]

@Anonymous 

A great solution you can try till Autodesk resolve this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltsKR7MdSr8&feature=emb_logo

[kimberly_fuhrman-jones]

We are updating this thread to Gathering Support. We are continuing to evaluate where this request falls into our roadmap and will provide an update when we have made a decision. 

The Factory

[rapT7BU2]

It is kind of sad that more than 4 years after this idea was originally posted, Autodesk recognizes it as "gathering support".

It's not: "yeah, we're working on that" or "we'll put it on our roadmap".

No, it's 4 years and then: "maybe we'll develop it and maybe we won't".

[YarUnderoaker]

Ha-ha, please stand by without any explanations...

Maybe your grandson will get this feature in future.

[MichaelRuehr]

330 Votes and still?

I can't understand this is back to gathering support and has been under Review before

It is clearly one of the tool implementations in Revit that are a thousand miles away from real life.

This would make such a HUGE change and while working on Walls make so much sense to remove it.

[evaNQT83]

YES! Make Revit reflect actual demolishing!

Also, option 2, with automatical infill, needs to be massively improved:

1. The infill wall needs phase information. Today it’s neither part of existing nor new phase when they in fact should belong to new phase.
2. The infill lacks Base/Top Constraint, Base/Top offset/Unconnected Height. (The only reporting quantity parameter is Area.)
3. The wall placement within the exterior/interior side of the host wall is limited. You can only constrain it to the location line options. Any other offset is impossible.
4. The boundary line between host wall and infill wall is invisible. This makes it nearly impossible to dimension the new infill wall if it has the same thickness as the host wall.

All of the above points makes these infills a nightmare to schedule, dimension and check.

[MichaelWarwick7522]

Found that if the door has both voids and openings making the hole in the wall it doesn't auto infill the (host) wall. Found this trying to make voids work on joined walls.

 

[Lars_Jeppesen]

Please add me / our practice to the 'yes please' list.  With us working on refurb projects in conjunction with external consultants, we need to ensure that the model is correct, therefore cannot utilise filters to control some views.

Yes, there are workarounds but that is just a waste of our time, when a simple tick box could resolve the issue.

[Ric_Weber]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones  This idea should be combined with the earlier posted idea: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/infill-yes-or-no-option/idi-p/6473443#comments  Thank you!

[Mike.FORM]

We accomplish this by having the door and frame be separate families.

All our doors use nested shared panel families. We then have one of the nested panels as empty so that we can just show the frame.

Then we can place the panel family (since its is shared) on its own at the same location and set it too demolished separate from the frame.

[luisPDAN6]

@Mike.FORM That is an interesting workaround. But we also prefer a solution that is clean, has correct door quantities, and similar to a building site. 

[evaNQT83]

It's also crucial that the infill wall is independent from it's "host" wall - with all the parameters that regular walls have.

Today the infill walls are missing almost all regular parameters such as base constraint, height, phasing etc which makes scheduleing a nightmare.

And needless to say, we need the same solution for windows!

[HVAC-Novice]

While you implement this for doors, this also should be done for Windows.

It also would be good to auto-infill with a new door/window so that the new door/window is at the very exact opening and size. 

[CEdwardsUN5MX]

Openings generally need a LOT of work done.

An opening can work across phases, but that is for windows and doors only, into a system element like walls and roofs.

If something else needs to be cut, whether multiple layers (required often) or something like a generic model, you have to generate a workaround which is complex to model.

[王欣阳]

难以置信的是2025年的帖子，2016年就有人回复了，难道是穿越了吗？

[mfortuneP5258]

YES!!!!  At least make it an option.  The only thing I have been able to do is select and say hide in view.  When you set a door/window or whatever to demo there should be an option you can select to include or exclude automatic infill. 

[victor_vijeu15]

I have the same problem with a window. I demolished a big window and replaced it with a smaller one. The original window opening is NOT preserved by Revit when you first demolish a window, then add a new window. The existing wall adapts to the new window,  which is incorrect. 

The workaround I use: I created a new window family with a brick encandrement on all sides. Each encandrement has a visibility parameter Yes/No and a length parameter = {original window length-new window length) /2. Of course you can have individual length parameters on each side, I used that formula for simplicity.

I copy the original window near the original window in the same wall. I change the family of the new window with the new window family with encandrement. I align the new window over the old window. I demolish the old window. This way Revit keeps the window opening, it doesn't actually deletes the existing opening.

This family is not adaptive, so it will not work on curved wall openings, but it is a start. 

[amcdesignstudii]

1 minute fix: To avoid the complications of the infill, I select the door and do a "hide in view" to the element,  then if needed draw a fake "demolished door" with demolished detail lines on the floor plan. Just remember to do a "hide in view" also on the sections/elevations, so that the element is not showing.