Placing Structural Elements at Upper Levels in Revit Structure

Hello, and welcome back to Revit Structure. In our previous video, we placed foundations and our concrete slab-on-grade at the basement level. Now it's time to start moving up the model and placing structural elements at the upper levels. The first thing we’re going to do is create a 9-inch concrete deck for our first level. Go to the Project Browser, navigate to Level 1, and select it. Here we see our first level view. Zoom in. You'll notice that the architectural overlay is visible. Let’s turn that off, as it can interfere when we’re trying to select lines for our concrete deck. Press VG to open the Visibility/Graphics Overrides dialog. Go to Revit Links under Visibility, and turn it off. Now we have a clean outline for our deck. Zoom in again, and go to Structure > Floor. Here, we see the previously used floor types, but not the one we need. Select the 5-inch concrete slab, then click Edit Type. Click Duplicate, and rename it Concrete – 9 Inch Concrete Deck. In the Type Properties, click Edit to open the Edit Assembly dialog box. We’ll now make the necessary adjustments. The structure assignment remains correct, as it's still part of the structural system. The material—normal weight concrete with 3 ksi compressive strength—remains adequate. Click OK. Now change the Thickness to 9 inches. Click OK again to exit the Type Properties dialog box. Now we’re ready to begin sketching the floor. Select Pick Lines, and you’ll notice that as you hover over the exterior lines, Revit automatically highlights and selects them. Continue around the perimeter to complete the outline. Very good—now we have our concrete slab in place. Next, we need to create pockets for the steel columns that will be placed on top of the concrete columns below. Enter the Boundary Line sketch mode. Draw a line at a 45-degree angle from the column center, then mirror it on the opposite side to create the initial shape of the blockout. What we want to do is break this line and chamfer it. Next, press Escape to exit the command. Highlight those two lines, then use Copy > Multiple, and copy them from the intersection or centerline of the column to each column along this line. At the corner, place the copied geometry, press Escape, delete the overlapping line, extend the appropriate line, and clean up the corner. This concrete slab will be filled in later, after the structural steel columns are in place. So let’s go ahead and clean this up—adjust those corners—and there you have it. Let’s continue. Press Escape again and copy from the intersection or centerline of the column to the next one. Extend and clean up that corner. To expedite this process, instead of copying each manually, we’ll use the Mirror tool to reflect the geometry about the centerline of the building. Go to Mirror > Pick Axis, select the axis, and the mirrored elements will be created. If the mirrored items aren’t perfectly placed, they will still be selected. Move them into position—select a corner and move it vertically or horizontally as needed. Let’s clean those up. Use the Break tool to break lines. You can break them anywhere—precision isn’t critical at this stage since we’ll refine the corners afterward. Repeat the process here. Press Escape to exit the current command. Use Copy to copy a line from one point to the next location. In this case, we have a different situation. Since the line can’t intersect properly, delete it, and then clean up the surrounding corners. This will provide enough space to place our structural column. Let’s complete one more area. Copy the line from the centerline of one column to the intersection at the adjacent column. Mirror this geometry about the axis. Use the Break tool, then clean it up. Now select this geometry, use Copy, and place it at the last two remaining columns near the face of the slab. Break and trim those lines as needed to finalize the shape. This task is a bit labor-intensive, but once you complete the geometry on one face, you can use Copy or Mirror to replicate it. Let’s mirror about the axis once more and move the elements into position. Break any excess lines. This one is not necessary, as it has already been accounted for. Clean up any remaining geometry. There you have the completed exterior blockouts. When Revit prompts with “Would you like the wall to go up to the floor's level and attach to its bottom?” select No. We'll review those walls separately and confirm they are already correctly positioned to support the slab. You’ll notice the interior columns do not have blockouts. We’ll use a different method for those. Go to Structure > Vertical Opening. This is another valid way to create openings in the floor slab. Select the slab. This will enter Sketch Mode. Draw a box that is initially 2' X 2', or revise it to 3' X 3' if needed. Press Escape to exit the command, and rotate the box 45 degrees. Place the box from the column centerline to the intersecting grid point. Then copy it to the other interior column locations. Now you’ve created blockouts for the structural steel columns that will be placed from the upper levels down through the slab. Press Escape, and click Finish Edit Mode. Click OK to confirm. You can now hide the Span Direction symbol if needed. Let’s take a look in a 3D View. Rotate to a top-down perspective. There you go—you now have blockouts, a 9-inch concrete slab, a slab-on-grade, walls, and foundations all in place. Zoom out. That concludes this video. We’ll see you in the next one.