Day 1 — The mental model

Everything confusing about Revit comes from one thing: it is a database with a drawing program bolted on the front, and the drawing program is honest about it. Today is about the shape of that database.

The hierarchy that explains everything

Category        Walls           ← fixed by Autodesk. You cannot invent one.
  Family        Basic Wall      ← the geometry rules and which parameters exist
    Type        Exterior - 8" CMU on Metal Stud   ← named set of values
      Instance  that wall over there, 24' long    ← one placed element

Internalize this today. It answers, without exception:

• Why did changing one thing change twelve things? You edited a type parameter. All instances of a type share type parameters. Always.
• Why can't I schedule this? Schedules are per-category. Wrong category, wrong schedule.
• Why won't this tag work? Tags are per-category too. A door tag reads doors.
• Why is this wall drawing differently? Category-level graphics (Object Styles), then the view's overrides, then a filter, then an element override — strongest wins.

Type vs. instance, the practical test

Select a wall. In the Properties palette, everything you see is an instance parameter — its base and top constraints, its location line offset, its comments. Click Edit Type and everything in that dialog is a type parameter — its structure layers, its thickness, its fire rating, its assembly code.

The test when you're deciding where a value belongs: would every one of these elements change together? If yes, it's a type parameter. If no — sill height, room number, a comment about this one instance — it's an instance parameter.

The habit that saves your week: before you modify any type, click Duplicate in the Edit Type dialog and give it a new name. Editing a template's built-in type in place is how you silently change 200 walls across your project. Duplicate → rename → modify should be automatic.

System families vs. loadable families

Two kinds of families, and the difference dictates how you work with them:

• System families are built from layer definitions and exist only inside a project: walls, floors, roofs, ceilings, stairs, railings, ducts, pipes. You can't save one to its own file. To move them between projects you use Manage → Transfer Project Standards, or copy an instance and paste it.
• Loadable families are separate .rfa files you load in: doors, windows, furniture, fixtures, equipment, most annotation. These you edit in the Family Editor (Day 4).

There's a third, in-place families, for genuinely one-off geometry. Treat them as a last resort — they bloat files and don't reuse.

More in families and types.

Levels are not just lines

A Level is a named horizontal datum. It is also:

• The host for floors, ceilings, and most plan views
• The thing walls constrain to at base and top
• What elements report their elevation against
• What appears in section and elevation views as a line with a head

Two rules:

1. Constrain walls to levels, not to "Unconnected". A wall with Top Constraint = Unconnected, Unconnected Height = 10' does not know about the building. Change the floor-to-floor height and it stays at 10'. A wall with Top Constraint = Level 2 follows. This one habit is the difference between a model that updates and a model you rebuild.
2. Renaming a level offers to rename its views. Say yes. Consistency between level names and view names is worth a lot on Day 6.

Level 1 usually sits at elevation 0. That's a convention, not a rule, but the whole industry follows it and coordinates get compared against it. See coordinates and positioning.

Grids are the structural conversation

Grids (GR) are the shared vocabulary between architecture and structure. Grid bubbles get labeled 1, 2, 3 / A, B, C and everyone on the project refers to locations by grid intersection — "the column at C-4".

Grids are automatically visible in views that cut them, and you control which views show which grids using scope boxes (Day 3). Copy a grid rather than drawing each one, so the numbering increments for you.

Drawing walls without making a mess

Wall (WA). Before you click, look at the Options bar, because it controls things that are painful to fix afterwards:

• Level — which level the wall's base sits on
• Height — set Top Constraint to the level above, not Unconnected
• Location Line — which plane of the wall follows your cursor. Wall Centerline is the default; for exterior walls you usually want Finish Face: Exterior or Core Face: Exterior so the outside of the building lands where you drew it. Changing this later shifts walls.
• Chain — keep drawing connected segments. Leave it on for building perimeters.

Draw clockwise and Revit puts the exterior face outward. If a wall is inside-out, select it and click the flip control (the double arrow) or press Space.

Sketching accurately

• Type dimensions as you draw. Start the wall, move in the direction you want, type the length, press Enter. Don't chase snap points.
• Watch the temporary dimensions and the snap tooltips. Revit tells you when it's snapping to an endpoint, midpoint, or perpendicular.
• Press Space while placing to rotate/flip.
• Use AL (Align) to make things line up exactly, and click the padlock to lock the alignment so they stay aligned.

Beware locking everything. Over-constraining causes "can't move this element" errors later. RC (Reveal Constraints) shows you what you locked.

Selection: the skill nobody teaches you

This is worth twenty minutes of deliberate practice, because it's the difference between fluent and frustrated. Full details in selection and navigation.

• Hover, then Tab to cycle through elements under the cursor. Watch the status bar bottom-left — it names exactly what's highlighted before you click.
• Hover a wall and press Tab to select the entire connected chain of walls.
• Ctrl+click adds, Shift+click removes.
• Select a bunch, then hit the Filter button (bottom-right) to narrow by category.
• Right-click an element → Select All Instances → In Entire Project to grab every one.

Today's exercise

Build the datums and shell footprint of the practice building.

1. Open RB-Practice.rvt. Open the South elevation view from the Project Browser (Elevations → South).
2. Create levels so you have: Level 1 at 0, Level 2 at 12'-0" (3600 mm), Roof at 24'-0" (7200 mm), and T.O. Parapet at 27'-0" (8100 mm). Use the Level tool and let Revit create the plan views; rename as you go.
3. Open the Level 1 floor plan. Place grids: vertical grids 1–5 at 24' (7200 mm) spacing, horizontal grids A–C at 30' (9000 mm) spacing. Place grid 1, then Copy it — the numbers increment automatically.
4. Duplicate a wall type: pick Basic Wall: Generic - 8", Edit Type → Duplicate → name it RB - Exterior 8". Don't change its structure yet; you just need your own type to own.
5. Draw the exterior walls on Level 1 as a closed rectangle on the outer grids, with Location Line = Finish Face: Exterior, Base = Level 1, Top Constraint = Level 2. Use Chain.
6. Add two interior partition walls creating three rooms. Use a different, thinner wall type so you can see the difference — duplicate Generic - 5" into RB - Interior 5".
7. Select one exterior wall, Edit Type, change its thickness in Structure. Watch every exterior wall change. Undo. Understand exactly why that happened.
8. Open the {3D} view (the house icon in the toolbar) and orbit with Shift + middle-drag. Your building has walls and no floors. That's Day 2.

Save. If you got here and the eight checkpoints below are all true, you've learned more than most people do in a week of videos.