In this session, I will show you how to create a window in Revit. You will find that creating a window is similar to creating a door in Revit. Because a window is hosted by a wall, we need to create the hosting wall elements first. In this model, we have already got some wall elements created according to the underlay. Now let us start creating window elements. Let us open the floor plan where we want to place the windows. Under the “Architecture” tab, on the “Build” panel, click on the “Window” tool. On the “Properties” palette, we can see the existing window families in this project listed here. Select the desired window type. And then we set the value of “Sill Height.” Sill height is the distance between the bottom of the window and the floor level. When we finish this setting, we are ready to place windows. It is hard to place a window at the right position by a simple click on the underlay. The reason is that when we are placing a window, the pointer usually goes with the center of the window, and there is usually no corresponding point on the underlay for us to click on for positioning. Therefore, we often place the window in an approximate position first. Then move this element to the right position by using other tools, like the “Move” tool or the “Align” tool. Now let us temporarily place this window element here. If the orientation of the window is not what we need, click on the double arrows symbol beside the window element to flip the window’s facing or hand direction. Next, under the “Modify/Place Window” tab, on the “Modify” panel, select the “Move” tool to move the window element to the right position. Choose a corner of the window element as a move start point, and then click on the corresponding corner on the underlay as the move end point. Now the window is in its right position. If we cannot find the desired window type in the “Type Selector,” we can load a window family into this project. If we want to load a window family, under the “Architecture” tab, on the “Mode” panel, click on the “Load Family” tool and choose the window family file. Then, click on “Open” and we can now select this window family in the “Type Selector.” If we have the window type in “Type Selector” but we don’t have the dimensions of the type we need, for example, the height and the width are not what we need, we can add a new window type to the project. And under the “Dimensions” field, modify the values of “Height” and “Width” for this window type. Also, when there are same windows on the same corresponding locations of each floor, we can copy and paste the window to other levels with automatic alignment. Let me demonstrate this. Select the window to be copied, then under the “Modify/Windows” tab, on the “Clipboard” panel, click on the “Copy to Clipboard” tool. Then click on the “Paste” tool. In this drop-down menu, choose “Aligned to Selected Levels.” In the “Select Levels” pop-up window, select the levels the window needs to be copied to. Then click on “OK” to finish copying the selected window to each level.
