Adding Columns to Grid Intersections in Revit: A Step-by-Step Guide

To create the columns, we can go in and add them to every single grid intersection with just a few steps here. So the first thing we want to do is we want to make sure we have the family loaded into our project. And one of the cool things about the new version of Revit, which is the 2021 version here, is we have this Load Autodesk Family option.

And so if you don't have the families installed correctly, which seems to be a common thing with Revit 2021, you can either load them from the cloud directly here, or you can go to Get Autodesk Content, which will take you to a website that allows you to download and install that content. But if you have access to the cloud here, which is just having internet access, which most of you do, we will be able to just use 'Load Autodesk Family'. And then you can see this looks pretty similar to our browser when we just do Insert > Load Family, because it's the same categories.

And I can go to columns and I can see I have the columns that I want to load in. So I'm going to grab this rectangular column and click load. And it was already in my project.

No big deal. I can just overwrite the existing version here. And what we can do is if we go to the Architecture tab, and then Column, you can see here, this one's going to have your structural columns.

If we do it again, and make sure that we pick 'Architectural Column', it'll allow us to use that rectangular one. And the difference here is that this one does not have any of the structural attributes that would be included if we use a structural column, meaning it's not going to show you the bearing points that you can connect to like beam systems and things like that. So this one is very much just a column that we're going to add to our project.

And so I can go in and I can add it to one of my grid intersections here. And we can go through and just kind of follow suit. And one of the things that I like to do is I like to check to make sure that the height is correct.

And so I'm going to delete that one because it wasn't what we wanted. And so I'll go in and I can look at it and I can see that we have our column set up here to go from Level One to Level Two. And we actually want it to go up to the roof.

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And then we want to have the base offset. And we'll set that base offset to negative two, making sure we're at Level One, base offset, negative two, roof is our top level. And if I were to look at this in 3D and check out that particular column, you can see that we have it set to sit just below the slab there, because we are going to put a footing on that.

So then I can take this and I can copy it to each one of the grid lines. And what I'll do a lot of times is I'll copy a few of them across, kind of like this. And that gives me the entire row here.

And then I can select them all and then just copy them down to grids A, B, C, and D. And when you want to copy multiple, you want to make sure that you are checking that multiple option in the options bar. And that'll allow me to copy multiple to each one of these grids. And remember, if we hold shift, it'll automatically turn on what we can call ortho for us here.

And that gets us set up so that we can add the columns. Now, there is a difference that I want to make here with some of these, and I want these columns, especially the ones that are outside here on the first floor. And then these two at the entry, we want to make those round columns.

And so if I wanted to change the type, you can see here, we've got the rectangular column loaded, the 24 × 24, which is what we're using, but I want to load in the round one. So I'll go to insert. Again, use that Load Autodesk Family option and then grab that round column and hit okay.

With that loaded now, I can select the ones I want to change, which I'm just going around the outside of the building here. And then I can change those columns from the rectangular to the round 24. And that looks a little big, so I think I'm going to change it to an 18 inch type, which is not loaded with that option, which is fine, because we can select those easily now.

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So I can say 'Select All Instances > In Entire Project', it'll select them all, and then I can go ahead and I can make a new type. So 'Edit Type' > 'Duplicate', and then just change my parameters to what I want. So 18, get rid of that extra two there, and then set this to 18 inches, and then hit okay.

And that looks much better. Now, when we look at this in 3D, the building's not so much floating anymore, because we have these columns as the basis for supporting our second floor. And it looks pretty good.

And so one thing that's worth pointing out here is if we were to do this with a structural column type, one of the options that we have when we place it is to use this at grid line point, or at the architectural column point, which is we just use these as kind of a placeholder. And so if I were to say at grids, I could essentially select all my grid lines. And that would make them part of the selection for how they get placed.

So at each one of these intersections, it's going to place a column for me. But that only works with the structural column types. And so they, for whatever reason, they always create them at interesting locations.

But if I were to go to 3D view, you can see it created those columns down below grade. If you are using a structural column, it's significantly faster. But in our case, we wanted to just use a placeholder.

But I felt it was worth showing that little trick there because it can make a difference in how long it takes to add columns in this building, there's not a ton of grid lines. So it really isn't that big of a deal to copy them. But you might be in a situation where it's a little bit more significant, and you would definitely want that shortcut.

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