Creating massing diagrams and zoning studies can be time consuming and tricky. No, Revit won’t help you better understand the zoning text, but it will help you create a coordinated zoning study between your 3D massing diagram and your preliminary floor area schedule (zoning and gross). You won’t need files upon files of polylines and spreadsheet – you will just need one Revit file. Sort of like Hamburger Helper, but without the ground beef or pan. I’ll show you the most efficient way of creating a conceptual mass that I use almost everyday at work. This will be the great basis for any zoning study and preliminary design stages.
Create a new project and go to the to the East elevation view. There you will see 2 levels. Select level 2 and copy it up 10′-0″ (point the mouse straight up just type 10 and press enter). Ensure that the constrain and multiple boxes are checked, keep copying the levels until you reach level 16. Double click on level 16 and rename it to Roof. Naturally, you can adjust the floor-to-floor heights and amount of floors to suit your project needs but I decided to pick nice easy round numbers.
Click the house on the quick access toolbar and go to the 3D View. Under the massing and site tab, click on in-place mass – you are now is mass sketch mode. If you get a notice informing you that Revit has enabled the Show Mass mode, that’s great. Hit close because this doesn’t concern us for now. Name the mass whatever you like. Click on Reference line, then click on the rectangle tool (see below). This will be the reference lines that will drive our in-place mass form.
Ensure that the Placement Plane is on Level: Level 1 (this can be seen right on the option bar just below the ribbon). Draw a rectangle that is 50′ x 100′. If you draw the rectangle and it is not quite the right size, select an individual line by using the tab key and change the temporary dimensions. Please note that reference lines in the mass editor will automatically highlight the entire chain, you have to use the tab key to get to the individual line. Or you could quickly double click on a line, that seems to work to get to a single line within a chain.
Press Escape twice and select all of the lines (one click). The Ribbon will automatically change to Modify | Reference Lines. Select – Create Form on the Form panel.
If prompted, select the button on the left showing the 3D form, rather than the flat plane on the right. This will create a solid box.
You will see the 2D rectangle change into a full-grown mass right before your very eyes. On the left site you will see a temporary dimension illustrating the height of the mass, select it and change that number to 100′-0″. If you click away from the mass before you change the height, hover your mouse of the top plane of the mass you should see only the top plane highlight. Click on the top plane and your temporary dimension will return – tab not required. Note that since the top of this is 100′-0″ height, this is the same height as Level 11.
Press escape twice to end everything. Click on the Reference line then rectangle again. Set the Placement Plane to Level: Level 11. This will ensure that we are drawing directly on top of our current mass at Level 11 (see below).
Using the reference line, rectangle, click on the corner indicated by the red star and then snap to nearest end as shown by the pink X. The shorter dimension should be exactly 50′-0″ and the other dimension can be anything; we will change it in a second.
Using the tab key, select the line indicated below and change the temporary dimension to 70′-0″.
Press escape twice and then select the entire chain of the newly created reference lines. The Ribbon will automatically change to Modify | Reference Lines. Select – Create Form on the Form panel.
If prompted, select the button on the left showing the 3D form, rather than the flat plane on the right. This will create a solid box.
Change the vertical temporary dimension to 50′-0″ as shown below. Note that the top of the mass should be our roof level at 150′-0″.
Under the Modify tab, click on the Join tool and click the top box, followed by the bottom box. This command joins the 2 box so they will act as one. Click the green check to complete the mass.
Cliffhanger alert! In the next post I will show you how to calculate the total floor area of the mass.
bimEveryday 