Best Practice Area Boundaries

[lhanyok]

In a previous Revit project, I created Area Boundaries without applying Area Rules. I used the pick tool to select a wall and then locked it. Later on, I got a lot of error messages about constraints, so I decided not to lock area boundaries to walls.

Now I'm working on a much larger project, and not locking area boundaries is becoming a problem. I just finished an occupancy plan (couldn't use rooms because some occupancies required gross areas), and it's going to be a pain to readjust area boundaries if anything inside changes.

I just wondered how others handled this issue.

Thanks!

Laura

[dhurtubise]

We always lock area lines to walls. In my part of the world we don't use rules so we don't bother with those.
But you still have to check your area plan once in a while since deleting some walls will also delete some lines.

[lhanyok]

So I went ahead and locked area boundary lines to walls. Today I moved a wall (that had an area line locked to it) and I get an error message that it can't keep the constraint. Am I doing something wrong?

[dhurtubise]

No, but it depends on your model.Try to use as less area boundary as you can. if 2 walls are side by side but with different height,lock to only one of the 2 for exemple

[clog boy]

Couldn't you use department just as well, and calculate the totals for the rooms in these departments? You could also use that as a way to sort your room schedule and conform to your contractor's design demands. This will leave wall areas out of the equasion, which might not be what you want.

[lhanyok]

This will leave wall areas out of the equasion, which might not be what you want.

That is the problem. Code requires some occupancies to be calculated with net areas, others by gross areas (area of the room to the center line of all interior walls). Hence the area plans.

It's also a problem, however, for our gross area plan for the entire building. Some exterior walls were shifted and nobody really paid attention to the area plan, then when we checked it before a big meeting, we had added 2000 gsf to the building.

[Justin Marchiel]

i use rooms to calculate room occupancies. the room is already there and it already reports it areas. I add in a formula for occupancy and it automatically spits out how many people are in the room.
i only use area plans for gross area.

Justin

[dhurtubise]

That is the problem. Code requires some occupancies to be calculated with net areas, others by gross areas (area of the room to the center line of all interior walls). Hence the area plans.

It's also a problem, however, for our gross area plan for the entire building. Some exterior walls were shifted and nobody really paid attention to the area plan, then when we checked it before a big meeting, we had added 2000 gsf to the building.
Same situation applies for us. We also need area plan. Revit is only a software, it still need user input ;-)