Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Why not use nested families for multifamily unit types?

mod2

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I'm working on a multifamily project that is adaptive reuse of an old mill. I've read up on the various arguments for managing unit types and the consensus seems to be to use groups and avoid any wall/floor hosted elements in those groups. I found a few people claiming families are better and getting shot down, but without any argument as to why.

Thing is, this is a serries of 14+ buildings built from the 1840s to the 1970s. To avoid or lessen the impact of having a metric crap ton of unit types, we'll use the same unit layout in spaces that vary in width up to 18" or so. This is managed by adjusting the width of corridors and common rooms - rooms and cabinetry and such are just placed along one wall or another.

It seems like the best thing would be to set up unit types as families with an instance parameter for width. So what's the argument against families?

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WWHub

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Joined: Tue, May 16, 2006
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Too many types of sub families would be needed to do as families.

Hosted families in groups are no a problem as long as you understand what happens.   Your situation is somewhat similar to what we have with hotel rooms.  To accomodate different unit widths, consider two or more grups per unit.  So you might have right hand wall unit / left hand wall unit or similar.  The hosted elements need to be able to find their host.

We also tried never to mirror a group so we had groups for each layout as entered from the corridor.  This was because mirroring in groups had problems.  Some or all of that may have been fixed by now.  I don't know.

Be aware that elements that need to be scheduled seperately do not work well in groups if you have to edit their values.  Even for instance based values, you can have problems.  I might include these items for initial placement then remove them from the group so I eliminate that problem.

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mod2

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What's the downside of having a lot of sub families? I haven't done much with nested families.

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WWHub

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First, where do you find doors, bath and kitchen fixtures as well as many cabinets and other families that are NOT wall or floor hosted?

Second, how do you control or modify these families?  Awkward at best and you don't want to have to edit the family.

Groups will work, you just need to learn how to use them.  Like many things in Revit, it will come over time if you start now.

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