Elements in Revit

Every Element in Revit Has Properties
You’ll interactively adjust elements, and you’ll also frequently change the model through properties.
Get used to the idea of clicking the Element Properties button to make changes to the model. A
member of the Basic Wall family, for example, has properties like width, height, bearing or non-
bearing, demolished or new, interior or exterior, fire rating, and material. You can even define how layers wrap when inserts are placed in the wall, add integrated wall sweeps, and build stacked
walls. Figure 1.4 shows the assembly options embedded in the type properties of a Revit wall.

Elements Interact with Other Elements—All the Time
The wall interacts with other walls to join geometries and clean up connections. It connects to
floors, levels, and roofs, and it affects rooms and areas. Windows and doors placed in a wall move
with the wall. Deleting the wall will delete all the windows and doors in the wall and all dimensions associated with the wall. If you move a level, expect floors, roofs, walls, and all the plumbing
and electrical features to also move as their parameters change. Keep the interaction of elements in
mind, especially in multi-user scenarios where your changes to the model will affect many views
at once.

Duplicating a View Takes Two Clicks
With Revit, you can duplicate floor plans quickly, allowing you to generate plans as in-progress
working drawings, others for presentation purposes, and still others for final Construction Documents (CDs). Note that this is very different from making a copy of a drawing: you are simply
duplicating a view then changing how to look at the model. Remember, no matter which view you
change the model in, the change will immediately be updated in all views. And in each view, you have
total control over what information you want to display. Think of a view as a pair of glasses that
can filter what you see; but the underlying model is still there, all the time.