A long time ago i got tired of dealing with the Elevator Manufacturers, and the 3rd party apps that *claim* to be able to Model decent Revit elevators. I gave up on them, and built a library of what i call a *super-Generic's:*

Its a family that is rather heavy when editing the types (and on regeneration, so sometimes i recommend clients drop the elevators in to a design option, so you dont accidentally pre-select them)), but it accurately represents just about all of the manufacturers and models out there. And- As all of the components are Shared and Nested, swapping out different parts means it can represent just about anything.

The variables in Vertical Transport ARE finite. If you look at all the manufacturers, they all give you the exact same variables. Once you list them all out, making custom parametric elevator components isn't difficult, just a matter of time. But it took a decent amount of time to plan through all of the options and error trap all of the variables in all of the families.

Even the Cab (nested Shared GM) has Invisible lines constrained to the bottom floor and upper floor (but not the pit) and includes a nested detail component, so when you cut any plan, you see the cab... Unless you cut a plan at the pit, where you see the pit.

None that are shown here are Hydraulic, but that doesn't mean it cant be Hydraulic. That's one change (one save as and a quick edit) to a Nested Component, followed by switching off a few Y/N parameters, and its done.

In case you want to build your own (highly recommended). This post will give you a solid start:


Keep the doors, controls, pit ladder and the guts in the shaft separate.

It'll be time well spent.

Your super generic elevators are freaking sick! I just have to pop out of the shadows and give you props sometimes, Aaron

That's good advice for pretty much every manufacturer's family. It's not like the guy in the field cares anyway. He's not paid to care if it's ACME or GIZMO as long as the dimensions work

Hehe. Thanks everyone! Get at me via email if you want to have a gotomeeting and see all of the functionality. I did a demo of them to a small crowd at BILTNA a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun.

The super fun part (for me) is im adding in a YES/NO parameter for killing the Steel and connections. Why? Well, since they are shared and nested, if the elevator subcontractor wants to take the nested steel HW brack components and manually place them based on their actually splicing, they can place them manually in the Hoistway. Then you can "turn off" the ones in the elevator component, and have an actual coordinated Hoistway.

Yes those families are definitely awesome. But for us it's so rare that we specify elevators I don't think it would be worth it. We only have a handful of projects in the last decade with an elevator, and I've never done a building with more than one cab, or more than 3 floors (2 floors for most of the ones we do). We usually just decide which elevator to spec, and draw the Revit model to fit it, and use either a generic elevator family or download a manufacturer family (if available) sized to the proper specs.

That's why I went so long without using ElevatorArchitect, because I just never could get results that fit our buildings. And apparently, I still can't.

When I 1st started BIM'ing back in '04 I'd resorted to detailing out the Shaft family with it's Annotation Lines, then have a Generic Elevator type with typical steel framing built in that only show up in a section, then a generic Elevator Door Family that I would group if 2 or more were side-by-side & propagate by level or by shaft location. The hoops I would jump through 'cause Aaron couldn't build his soon enough ;p

Actually, now I built in the parametric plan representations into the generic Elevator Door family, then a generic Elevator family with options to be seen in a Section :/

Arguing with our spec writer/QC about the need to model elevators. He just wants an "X" and a door. SMDH


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He can have an x on his paycheck