10 Quick Steps to Building a Residential House in Revit

Have you heard about Revit and all the benefits of BIM but never knew where to start? This article will show you the core components of Revit that you will need to design a house.

We will show you a visual step by step guide on how all these elements come together so you can start designing and documenting your own house designs!

And at the end - we'll show you some of the drawings that you can output directly from the 3D model.



Quick Guide

  1. Import / Setup your Topography
  2. Place your building Pads to setup the ground slabs
  3. Construct your ground level walls
  4. Introduce your second floor slab with cantilevers
  5. Construct the upper storey walls
  6. Add in Columns and Structural Walls
  7. Introduce the Stair Case and Feature Curtain Walls
  8. Add in a Flat Roof
  9. Finish off with some Retaining Walls and the Pool
  10. Import into Keyshot for rendering

Step 1 Import / Setup your Topography

This can be imported from a CSV file, Rhino or created from scratch using by picking points and setting their elevations

Step 2 Place your building Pads to setup the ground slabs

Building pads can be found in the Massing & Site tab. These will create a slab but also cut into the topography and produce nice automatic cut graphics in your sections.
You can use multiple pads to represent different materials - for example the pool tiling or outdoor stonework.

Step 3 Construct your ground level walls

With the ground slabs in, you can now add in your walls. Use the wall tool and duplicate the family types to create different wall variations

Step 4 Introduce your second floor slab with cantilevers

Switch over to the upper level floor plan and draw in your second floor slab. You can now reference the walls below to help you out.

Step 5 Construct the upper storey walls

Stay in the floor plan view and start drawing your external and interior walls for the upper storey.

Step 6 Add in Columns and Structural Walls

Feel free to add in any structural columns or walls to support any cantilevers or large spans as required

Step 7 Introduce the Stair Case and Feature Curtain Walls

Let's make a feature from the stair case with a full height curtain wall.
You will need to cut an opening in your slab by editing the sketch so it does not show through the curtain wall. Add in a curtain grid and mullions to support the glass

Step 8 Add in a Flat Roof

Cap off the top of your building with either a Slab or a Roof with no slopes.

Step 9 Finish off with some Retaining Walls

Place in some retaining walls where the building pads have cut into the topography to stabilise your site.

Step 10 Import into Keyshot for rendering

Import straight from Revit into Keyshot and touch up in Photoshop to present to your clients...

BONUS Documentation

Now that the model is built, we have the added bonus from BIM that all the floor plans, sections and elevations are generated from the 3D model. With a few tweaks to the graphic styles, here are some additional drawings you can produce!

You have now seen the main elements you need to work with when designing a residential house. The great news is that you can model intuitively in 3D whilst your drawings are integrated and ready to print, reducing time, effort and integration discrepancies across drawings!

If you would like to share your thoughts on our blog, we’d love to hear from you!
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Posted on 09 Oct 2023

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