Carpitecture: All in the Family...

For the ASID:

A quick review sheet and some links for Revit Families:

First and foremost: pick the right template to begin with! Often there is no going back.
Flex your model early and often!
Avoid at (nearly) any cost the mistake of locking geometry to geometry….this is BAD and the family will not flex. Rather, ‘sketch’ out your shape with reference lines\planes and align the geometry to that reference geometry.
Reference lines are used for rotation and are not infinite (where they begin defines the rotation point!), reference planes for horizontal spacing or permanent angles and they are infinite.
With complicated families you will need to ‘nest’ one family within another….an example would be a single ‘shelf’ family within a bookshelf family.
Make something an ‘instance’ parameter if you want it to be changeable for every ‘instance’ of the family. Use ‘type’ parameter if you want it to be universal.
I highly recommend the book ‘Mastering Revit 2012’ by Eddy Krygiel

For information on the Revit class I taught this last summer (Arch. 404) visit:

Also, if you are interested, here is the Autodesk Official Family Guide page. It’s for Revit 2010 but applies to 11\12:

Sunday, September 11, 2011