Chapter 9: Advanced Modeling and Massing

Create and schedule massing studies. Starting the design process with actual building elements can lead to a lot of unexpected frustration. Walls lead to rooms, which get room tags and eventually scheduled. But if you've failed to fulfill the program, you'll wonder where to start over!

Master It You're faced with creating some design studies of a large hospital complex. How would you go about creating a Revit project that would allow you to create a massing study and schedule it against the design program?

Solution Massing studies allow you to create schedules of the surface, floor areas, and volumes of a mass. This is incredibly helpful for resolving the design intent and program before committing to walls, floors, and other building geometry.

Know when to use solid and surface masses. While solid masses and surface masses can both be used to maintain relationships to host geometry like walls and roofs, surface masses can't be volumetrically scheduled or contain floor area faces.

Master It You've been asked to create a complex canopy system for the entry to a hotel project. The system will consist of a complex wave of triangular panels. What kind of mass would you create?

Solution You're probably going to be better off not creating a solid mass since you don't need a solid—you only need a surface. It's best to use solids when you have to calculate the overall design program: floor areas, surface, and volume. For limited, surface-based relationships, just use surface massing. Surface masses will help you resolve the overall design idea first. Then you can move on to patterns and eventually component-level geometry.

Use mathematical formulas for massing. Not all massing is going to be intuitive, in-the-moment decision making. By discovering the underlying rules that express a form, it is possible to create the formulas that can iterate and manipulate your massing study. So rather than manually manipulate the mass, you manipulate the formulas related to your mass.

Master It What's the best way to discover and create these formulas?

Solution Never stop sketching! Staring at a blank spreadsheet is a one-way road to frustration. Sketch the idea and try to discern the rules that make the form change and morph into your design idea. Once you think you've discovered the rules that contain the idea, start testing the rules in Revit. Once you find that the idea or principle is valid, it's simply a matter of scale.