Session 1 · Model a pavilion

About two hours. You open Revit for the first time and leave with a small building modeled from scratch. Nothing fancy. The point is that the whole thing exists and that you built it in the right order.

The result

A one-storey pavilion, 6 × 9 m, with two levels defined, a floor slab, at least one door and two windows. Saved as pavilion_s1.rvt.

Workflows, in order

1. Start a New Revit Project and Set Units — A fresh Revit project with the right template, units and save habits. (clip)
2. Set Up Levels and Floor Plans — Levels set up with matching floor plans for every storey. (clip)
3. Draw Your First Walls and Floor in 15 Minutes — A closed rectangular shell, four walls and a floor slab. (clip)
4. Test Walls and Dimensions (Temporary vs Permanent) — Draw test walls and move them precisely with temporary vs permanent dimensions. (clip)
5. Place Doors and Windows in Walls — Every opening hosted correctly, swinging the right way, at the right sill and head height. (clip)

The walls-and-floor workflow draws an 8 × 5 m rectangle as its example. Draw yours at 6 × 9 m instead; the steps are identical, only the two numbers change.

Checkpoint before you move on

• The project units are mm and the file has been saved with a real name.
• Two levels exist (Level 1 at 0, Level 2 at 3000 or so) and each has a floor plan.
• Four walls close a loop with no gap at the corners. Hover over each corner: no wall end is dangling.
• The floor was made with Pick Walls, not drawn by hand, so it follows the walls if you move one.
• Click the house icon (Default 3D View). You see a closed box with holes for the door and windows. If a window floats above the wall or a door swings into the wall, fix it now with the flip arrows.

If it went wrong

• Walls won't close the loop. Delete the last wall, restart the Wall tool with Chain ticked, and click exactly on the first wall's endpoint. Revit shows a small endpoint snap symbol when you are on it.
• The floor asks about attaching walls. Answer No for now. That question comes back in the course when it matters.
• A window is in the wrong wall. Delete it and place it again. Do not drag it across the plan; hosted elements do not travel between walls well.

Next: Session 2 · Draw it and print it

Session 2 · Draw it and print it

About two hours. Start from pavilion_s1.rvt. The model does not change in this session. What changes is how you look at it: views are cut from the same model, placed on a sheet, and printed. This is the part of Revit that feels most different from Rhino or AutoCAD, and the part that pays off for the rest of your degree.

The result

A sheet carrying your ground-floor plan and a section at 1:100, with a filled-in title block, exported as a vector PDF. Saved as pavilion_s2.rvt.

Workflows, in order

1. Open Your First Plan, Section, and 3D View — Three live views of the same building side by side, with a section line you cut yourself. (clip)
2. Control View Range and Cut Plane — View range and cut plane set so the plan shows what you intend. (clip)
3. Create Sheets and Custom Titleblocks — A sheet with a title block that carries your name. (clip)
4. Lay Out Your First Sheet with a Plan and Section — Plan and section placed at 1:100 with clean view names. (clip)
5. Export Sheets to PDF — A correctly sized, correctly scaled vector PDF. No printer drivers, no plugins. (clip)

You can use the default title block for step 3 if you are short on time. Making a custom one is a nice extra and the course covers it properly.

Checkpoint before you move on

• Move a wall in the 3D view. The plan and the section update by themselves. If they do not, you drew lines, not a section.
• The plan cut plane sits at about 1200 mm: windows show as openings in the walls, not as solid wall.
• The sheet shows both views at 1:100 and the view titles say something you chose, not "Level 1 Copy 1".
• Open the PDF and measure the long wall with the PDF reader's ruler. It reads 9 m at 1:100. If it does not, the print scale was wrong.

If it went wrong

• The section shows nothing. Its view depth is too shallow or it looks the wrong way. Select the section line in plan and use the flip arrows, then check the far clip.
• The PDF is A4 while the sheet is A1. Paper size is set in the export dialog, not on the sheet. Set it to match the title block and set zoom to 100%.
• Views are pale or greyed on the sheet. That is the view's detail level or a halftone setting. Leave it for now; the course has a whole class on view graphics.

Next: Session 3 · Document it

Session 3 · Document it

About two hours. Start from pavilion_s2.rvt. Until now Revit looked like a modeller with a good print dialog. This session shows the other half: every wall, door and room carries data, and the drawings can read it. A tag is not a text label. A schedule is not a table you type into.

The result

The pavilion with named, numbered rooms, a dimensioned and tagged plan, and a door schedule placed on the sheet next to the plan. Saved as pavilion_s3.rvt. This is the file you bring to the first class.

Workflows, in order

1. Place Rooms and Tags That Report Name, Number, and Area — Every enclosed space carries a Room whose tag shows its computed area. (clip)
2. Rooms & Area Calculation — Room boundaries and areas that stand up to checking. (clip)
3. Annotate a Plan with Dimensions, Text, and Tags — A dimension string, a text note, and door and window tags reading data from the model. (clip)
4. Build a Door Schedule That Fills Itself In — A live schedule: Mark, Type, Width, Height, Level, placed on your sheet. (clip)

Optional, if you have half an hour left and want to see why the course spends a whole class on views:

5. Selecting by Type, Filtering, Isolating, and Hiding Elements — Select by type, filter, isolate and hide with intent. (clip)

Checkpoint

• Add a partition wall that splits the pavilion in two. Two rooms appear and their tagged areas add up to roughly the original. Delete the wall again if you like.
• Rename a door's Mark in the schedule. The tag on the plan changes. Rename it on the plan. The schedule changes.
• Every door and window on the plan has a tag, and the tags are not sitting on top of the dimensions.
• Reprint the sheet. The PDF now carries plan, section and schedule, and the title block has your name on it.

If it went wrong

• The room tag says "Not Enclosed". There is a gap in the walls somewhere. Go back to the Session 1 checkpoint and hover the corners.
• The room area seems too large. Check whether the room is being measured to the wall centre or the wall finish. The area-calculation workflow shows where that setting lives.
• The schedule is empty. It is filtered to a level with no doors, or the doors were placed on a different level than you think. Remove the filter first.

You are done

You have modeled, printed and documented a building. In the course you will do this loop again, twice, each time deeper: real sites, Rhino geometry coming into Revit, multi-storey walls and stairs, view control, diagrams and a final visualisation. Save pavilion_s3.rvt somewhere you will find it in September.

Questions along the way go to Ask Archidemy. And if a step in a workflow was unclear, say so there too; the library gets better because people ask.