Create a Mass Model in Revit

00:02

We're going to start testing our building's performance by creating a mass model in Revit.

00:07

Now, remember we're in the concept stage.

00:10

So, this is going to be a very schematic basic model without a lot of detail.

00:19

Here we are in Revit 2024. I'm going to create a new model and I'll base it on the Imperial Multidiscipline template.

00:31

I want to work out of a 3D view.

00:33

So, I'm going to set my view to the default 3D view.

00:39

Now on the Massing & Site ribbon, I click "In-Place Mass".

00:44

Revit tells me that it has enabled the shown mass mode temporarily, which is okay.

00:51

I click "Close" to acknowledge that and I'm going to call the mass model option one and click "OK".

01:02

The building I want to create is roughly 50 by 160 ft and about 45 ft tall.

01:11

So, I'll go to my rectangle in my draw and I'm going to sketch out a rectangle roughly those dimensions.

01:23

That's simple enough.

01:25

Now, in my ribbon, I'm going to select "Create form".

01:30

I want to create a solid form.

01:32

By default, it creates it as 50 ft tall.

01:36

I'm going to simply click on that and set it to 45 ft.

01:42

Now in my ribbon in my In-Place editor, I click the green check mark for finishing the mass.

01:50

I can adjust the mass after it's been created by using these grips,

01:55

making it wider, less tall, narrower.

02:03

And I could even go in and edit this geometric shape.

02:08

I'll undo that to get back to the original.

02:12

You'll note with the template that we picked, we only have two architectural levels.

02:19

And if I expand my elevations,

02:22

I'm going to select the north elevation and I want to create two more levels.

02:29

So, I select level two.

02:32

And in my ribbon, I go to copy, I'm going to create level 3, 10 ft up.

02:40

And level four, another 10 ft.

02:46

Hit modify because those are the only levels I want.

02:50

Now you'll also notice that the level markers are black, which means we don't have any views created for these levels yet.

02:59

So, let's do that.

03:00

I go to my view tab, I want to create some plan views, floor plan view in my drop down.

03:09

And I want to select level three, repeat that for level four.

03:21

Now you see in our project browser, we have levels one, two, three, and four.

03:29

I go back to my default 3D view.

03:32

Now I see the four levels.

03:36

Now remember this is just a very simple conceptual mass model to be used for Insight analysis.

03:45

I can save this as option one.

03:51

And in my options, I only want one backup.

03:58

And click "Save".

04:01

This will allow me later to create other options of Revit massing models for comparative analysis within Insight.

04:13

Let's generate some floor plates within this mass model.

04:16

So, I select the mass model and in my contextual ribbon,

04:21

I have mass floors.

04:24

I select which levels I want the floors to be at.

04:28

I select all four levels.

04:31

I go to my shaded mode, the four levels show up better.

04:40

And if I click on individual floor plates, in my properties,

04:45

I can see that the floor area is roughly 8,000 square feet, which seems fine for me.

04:51

But you should always check that with your project manager.

04:55

Okay.

04:56

We have our mass, our mass floor plates.

05:00

Last thing we need to do is to set our location.

05:03

So, Insight can do some calculations based on the various information it has for that location.

05:10

For that, I go to my manage tab, I click on "Location".

05:18

My project is oriented in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

05:21

So, I type that in.

05:24

I select which Allentown I want.

05:28

Expand that a little bit.

05:30

And now I can actually drag my pin near the location where my project is going to be situated.

05:40

And click "OK".

05:44

We now have all the information we need for Insight to start doing its analysis.

05:50

So, we'll look at that next.