Before we talk about Revit MEP spaces, a brief overview of
Revit Architecture Rooms and Revit MEP Spaces is generally helpful. Revit Rooms
and Spaces are independent components used for different purposes. Rooms are an
Architectural component used to hold data about the occupied space (Figure 1).
Figure 1 - Room
properties
Spaces are used exclusively by the MEP disciplines and are
used to hold data about the areas in which they have been place that can be
used to perform heating and cooling load analysis (Figure 2).
Rooms and Spaces have some common characteristics. Both are
created within room-bounding elements such as walls, floors, ceilings, roofs,
and room separation lines that are present in the Architectural model. So
objects that are used to define a Room in the Architectural model define the
Space in the MEP model.
Figure 2 - Space properties
Using Spaces, the Mechanical Designer can model the HVAC
loads within the program or export the space load data via a gbXML file for
importing into various external simulation software packages. Within Revit MEP,
Spaces can be used to:
·
Perform heating and cooling analysis
·
Perform conceptual energy analysis
·
Analyze duct and pipe system pressure
Creating spaces is a very quick process that begins after
you have linked in the Architecture model. Select the Architecture model and in
the Properties palette, select Edit Type to edit the Type properties for the
linked file (Figure 4).
Figure 3 - Selected
Linked Architecture Model and Properties Palette
This opens the Type Properties dialog (Figure 4) and allows
you to enable Room Bounding by checking the Room Bounding Switch. This option
allows the boundaries of the Architectural model to be used to define the
boundaries of the MEP spaces. Check the checkbox to enable Room Bounding then
click OK to close the Type Properties dialog.
TIP: If you do not enable the linked file to be Room
Bounding and you try to place a Space, you will get a warning that the placed
Space is not in an enclosed region. If you try to run any analysis without
having defined spaces, Revit will not be able to calculate loads.
Figure 4 - Enabling
Room Bounding of the Architecture model
To place Spaces in the model, click on the Analyze tab
(Figure 5). The Spaces & Zones panel provides us with the options needed to
create both Spaces and Zones. To create a space we can either place the space
manually or allow Revit to locate and place spaces automatically.
Figure 5 - Adding
Spaces
To automatically generate Spaces, click on the Space button
in the Spaces & Zones panel. This will bring up the Modify | Place Space
tab and click on the Place Spaces Automatically button (Figure 6).
Figure 6 - Modify |
Place Space tab
Revit will then automatically place all the Spaces in the
model and will report how many spaces were created (Figure 7).
Figure 7 - Automatic
Space creation number of spaces reported dialog
TIP: If you are going to create Spaces automatically using
the automatic mode, make sure that all the spaces created are what you actually
intended. Remember that Revit MEP spaces will be generated from room bounding
components in the Architecture model. Areas such as utility chases, air spaces
in wall construction were not included.
TIP: If a Space was created automatically that should not
exist, resist the temptation to select the space in a view and delete it. This
will delete the space from the model, but the space is still present in the
model.
Space Schedule
After you have created your spaces in the model, it is a
good idea to create a schedule of the building space properties. The schedule
can be to validate that the space usage, components, internal loading and areas
are correct. Creating a schedule within Revit provides a quick means for
accessing this data. It is assumed that this schedule is being utilized for
internally for design purposes and not to be placed on a sheet to be provided
to the client.
As an example, in Figure 8 I have created a basic Space
Properties schedule that contains the following information. This information
can and should be modified to fir your desired workflow and means and methods.
Name: Name
of the Space
Number: Number
of the Space
Space Type: Description
of how the Space will be utilized
Number of People: Occupancy
of the Space
Area: Area
of the space
Construction Type: Physical
Construction of the Space
Condition Type: Type
of Space Conditioning
Occupiable: Will the space be occupied
Zone: Zone
Space is associated with
Figure 8 - Space
Properties schedule
Space Name and Numbers
When we create spaces, Revit MEP will automatically name the
Space “Space” and automatically start numbering the rooms. This naming and
numbering process probably does not match the room naming and numbering used by
the Architectural model. For coordination purposes, naming and numbering spaces
to match the corresponding architectural rooms makes sense and Autodesk
provides a Space Naming Utility Add-In (Figure 9) for renaming Spaces to match
Architectural Rooms.
Figure 9 - Space
Naming Utility
The Space Naming Utility (SNU) can be found in the Add-Ins
tab on the Space naming Utility panel. Clicking on the Launch SNU button opens
the Autodesk Revit MEP Space Naming Utility dialog (Figure 10). The SNU
provides you with the option to coordinate the Room Name and/or Numbers with
Spaces. You also have the option to select with Levels you want to coordinate
the Room/Space names and/or numbers. Clicking the OK button runs the command
and the results are shown in Figure 11.
Figure 10
– Space Naming Dialog
TIP: If there is not a corresponding Room for each of the
Spaces that have been generated in Revit MEP, then the Space name will not be
updated.
Figure 11
– Space Properties Schedule
Zones
Once we have our Spaces defined, we want to start grouping
similar Spaces into Zones. Placing Zones is simply a matter of assigning Spaces
to a Zone. When a Space is created, it is automatically assigned to the
“Default” zone.
Prior to assigning Spaces to Zones, I like to switch to a
working Plan View that is a Plan View that will not be dropped on a sheet for
printing. I then apply a Space Tag to each Space that also contains the Zone
information (Figure 12). This step is not required, but can be helpful to make
sure that you place the spaces in the correct Zones.
Figure 12
- Space Tag with Zone
To create a Zone, on the Analyze tab, in the Spaces &
Zones panel, click on the Zone button (Figure 13). This opens up the Edit Zone
tab. By default, the tool that is active is the Add Space button. You can
immediately go to the plan view and click on Spaces and they will be added to
the zone. Clicking on the Remove Space button allows you to remove a space from
a Zone. When finished, clicking on the Finish Editing Zone button ends the
current Zone editing session. You can only create one Zone per Edit Zone
session.
Figure 13
- Zone button and the Edit Zone ribbon.
To edit an existing Zone,
select the Zone and then on the Modify | HVAC Zones tab, click the Edit Zone
button.
When you click on a Zone,
Zone data will appear in the Properties Pallette. The physical data about the
zone (area, volume perimeter) and the calculated heating and cooling loads and
zone airflow (after heating and cooling analysis has been run) are available
(Figure 14). Zone names can be adjusted in a schedule or by selecting the Zone
and updating the Zone name in the Properties Palette.
Figure 14
- Zone data from Properties Palette
Deleting Spaces
When working with Spaces, it is a good idea to think of a
Revit Space object as two parts. One part is an object that we place in the
model and we can click on it and gets its properties. The other is an
analytical like part that doesn’t have a physical component that we can
manipulate. If you need to delete a Space, it is very important that the Space
is deleted properly, so that it doesn’t impact future building analysis.
For example, Figure 15 shows a portion of a plan view with
the Stair Space selected and the System Browser with the same Stair
highlighted. If we click on the DELETE key to delete the space in the model, Revit
will throw up a Warning message (Figure 16), the Space geometry will be deleted,
but the space will still be present in the model (Figure 17).
Figure 15
- Highlighted Space and System Browser`
Figure 16
- Space Warning message
Figure 17
To completely delete a space from the model, in a Space
Properties schedule, select the row that contains the space that you want to
delete. To delete multiple spaces, drag the cursor across the rows that contain
the spaces that you want to delete.
