Add Doors and Windows (9 min)

Exercise 4–Add Doors and Windows

In this exercise, we’ll add doors and windows to our model.

Catch-up file completed to this point: 08_Medical Center_Doors-and-Windows_A.rvt

Be sure that Level 1 floor plan is the current view. Close any other open view tabs or windows.

Placing Doors

  1. On the Architecture tab, on the Build panel, click the Door tool (or press dr).

Move the mouse around the screen.

Notice that the door only appears when your cursor is highlighting a wall. Doors must be “hosted” by walls. They cannot be placed free-standing in space.

  1. Place the mouse on the horizontal exterior wall at the corridor leading out between Grids 8 and 9.

If you move the mouse slightly inside and outside the building the door direction changes. If you tap the spacebar, you can flip it side to side as well (see Figure 8–1).

Figure 8–1 Place a door in the exterior wall at the top

  1. When the door is pointing outside the building, click to place it.

The door will appear and will cut a hole in the receiving wall. The door is hosted to that wall. If that wall is moved the door will move. If the wall is deleted, the door will also be deleted. Feel free to try this, just undo before continuing.

Notice where the temporary dimensions appear for this door. They measure to the door’s center. You may prefer to measure to the opening instead.

  1. On the Manage tab, click the Additional Settings drop-down and choose: Temporary Dimensions.
  2. For Walls, choose: Faces and for Doors and Windows choose: Openings and then click OK (see Figure 8–2).

Figure 8–2 Customize the locations of temporary dimension witness lines

When you dismiss this dialog, the Door command should still be active. If you canceled it, please run it again. Notice that as you move the mouse around now, the doors measure to the openings instead of the centers.

  1. Using the temporary dimensions as a guide, place a few more doors at some of the interior rooms set 6" from the corner of the room (see Figure 8–3).

Remember the spacebar to flip.

Figure 8–3 Add some more doors to the offices at the top of the plan - use temporary dimensions as a guide

Door Families

The door we are using is a single-flush door. This is the “family.” This is also the only family currently available in this project. In some cases, you want a double door or doors with vision panels. These are different families that must be loaded into the project.

  1. Remain in the Door command and on the Modify | Place Door tab, click the Load Family button.
  2. In the “Load Family” dialog, double-click the Doors folder. Then the Commercial folder.
  3. Hold down the ctrl key and select: Door-Passage-Double-Flush.rfa, Door-Passage-Single-Flush.rfa, Door-Passage-Single-Vision_Lite.rfa and Door-Passage-Single-Full_Lite.rfa (see Figure 8–4).

If you don’t have these folders or families, copies have been provided with the dataset files.

Figure 8–4 Select door families to load into the project

  1. Click Open to load these families.

The “Specify Types” dialog will appear next. This dialog allows you to select one or more type for each family being loaded. You can choose just a single type per family or use the ctrl key to select more than one size per family.

  1. In the “Specify Types” dialog, Select the first family in the list at the left (Passage-Single-Vision_Lite.rfa).
  2. Hold down the ctrl key and select these sizes: 30″ x 84″ and 36″ x 84″ (see Figure 8–5).

Figure 8–5 Select one or more types to load for each family

Stay in the “specify Types” dialog.

  1. Select the next family in the list: Door-Passage-Double-Flush.rfa, select the 72″ x 84″ size.
  2. For each of the remaining two sizes, use the ctrl key again and select the 30″ x 84″ and 36″ x 84″ sizes.
  3. Click OK to finish loading the families and their types.

On the Properties palette, the Type Selector at the top now displays the four newly loaded families and their types plus the original family that was already in the file. Think of the types as the predefined sizes for each family.

Figure 8–6 The Type Selector now contains the newly loaded families and types

Some families contain “Type Catalogs” which trigger the display of the “Specify Types” dialog that we saw a moment ago. As you can see from the Type Selector, families with type catalogs will only load the types you select during the load process. If you later decide you need another size that was not previously loaded, just repeat the load process and choose the desired size.

Some families do not have type catalogs. In such cases, all types within the family will be loaded automatically and you will not be prompted to select any during the load process.

  1. From the Type Selector, beneath the Door-Passage-Single-Full_Lite family, choose the 36″ x 84″ type.
  2. On the Properties palette, uncheck the Masonry Frame checkbox and then place an instance of the door in the vertical wall just above the column at Grid E6 (see Figure 8–7).

Figure 8–7 Add one of the new door families

  1. Continue adding the newly loaded types as indicated in Figure 8–8. Be sure to uncheck Masonry Frame for all doors except the two double doors.

Figure 8–8 Add the remaining doors - Letters refer to type, see legend

Sometimes you change your mind about the element type you want to use. It is easy to make such an adjustment in Revit. Let’s change the first few doors we created with some of the ones we loaded instead.

  1. Right-click one of the original Single-Flush doors added to the top of the plan and choose: Select All Instances > Visible in View.
  2. From the Type Selector, beneath the Passage-Single-Full_Lite family, choose the 36″ x 84″ type.
  3. Hold down the shift key and click to deselect only the single exterior door at the top of the plan (the first one created).

The remaining five doors will stay selected.

  1. On the Properties palette, uncheck Masonry Frame.

Adding Windows

Adding Windows is the same as adding doors.

Catch-up file completed to this point: 08_Medical Center_Doors-and-Windows_B.rvt

  1. On the Architecture tab, on the Build panel, click the Window tool (or press wn).

There three window families loaded in this file. You are welcome to click Load Family and load other styles of window if you prefer, or you can simply use the ones here.

  1. Place some windows in the rooms at the top of the plan (see Figure 8–9).

Figure 8–9 Add some windows to the plan

By default, the temporary dimensions for the windows reference the walls and typically those nearest the windows. If you want to space your windows relative to other geometry like the exterior features of the building or the column grid, you can use the technique covered above for walls and first add some permanent dimensions and then modify them.

  1. On the QAT, click the Aligned Dimension tool (or press di).
  2. Place the first witness line at the outside face of the vertical wall at Grid 6.
  3. Place a witness line at the center of each window.
  4. Click in empty space to finish (see Figure 8–10).

Figure 8–10 Dimension the centers of the windows

  1. Select the leftmost window. On the Options Bar, click the Activate Dimensions button (see Figure 8–11).

Figure 8–11 Select a window and activate the dimensions to move it

  1. Edit the dimension on the left to move the window and set its distance to: 4'-0" from the wall.
  2. Working left to right, select a window, click Activate Dimensions, then edit the dimension on the left. Then move to the next one. A distance of: 10'-0" works well (see Figure 8–12).

Figure 8–12 Use dimensions to relocate the windows

Even though the locations of the windows inside the rooms are now somewhat random, the spacing from the exterior of the building is even.