Revit Stairs & Railings Index Page

Grenada - stairway to nowhere

In late 2011 I started beta testing the new Revit component based stair tools, and I learned a lot about the subtleties - both good things and shortcomings.  In early 2012, the new tools were released as part of Revit 2013.  In May 2012 I did a presentation on the new stair tools at the Revit Technology Conference in Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
In Revit v2014, very little changed - just a few minor tweaks that developed in response to beta testing feedback.
Since then I have published sections of my RTC presentation on this blog, along with a few tricks I have learned since then.
Here is a summary index to all my posts on stairs and railings.

Index

Revit Stairs 

• Stair Landings - Part 1 Creation
• Stair Landings - Part 2 Modification
• Multistorey Stairs - Method 1:  Virtual upper levels - "Multistory Top Level"
• Multistorey Stairs - Method 2:  Modelled upper levels
• Spiral and Curved Stairs
• Winder Stairs
• U-Shape Winder Stairs
• Stair Shape Handles
• Stair by Component Sketch
• Stair Component Sketch Rules
• Tapered Stairs 

• Stepped Stairs  

 

• Selecting Stairs, Railings and their sub-components
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 1 - Stairs in Groups  
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 2 - Minimum Tread Width Warning 
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 3 - Detail plan views
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 4 - Stair Subcategory Overrides
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 5 - Top Riser Line Missing
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 6 - Showing Concrete Stairs Under Tread Finishes
• Weird Stair Stuff - True 3D RCP View of a Stair in Revit
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 7 - No Array in Stair Sketch
• Weird Stair Stuff - part 8 - Stair Joins in Section
  

Stair Sub-Categories 

• Stair Subcategories 
• In-Place Family Stair Category - Do Not Use It
• Stair Subcategory Overrides 
• Stair Subcategories and Materials 
  Railing Subcategory Overrides

Stair Annotation

• Stair Path Arrows
• Stair Path Arrows at Different View Scales
• Stair Path Arrows & Detail Plan Views 

Railings

• Multistorey Railings - Method 1:  Virtual upper levels - "Multistory Top Level"
• Multistorey Railings - Method 2:  Modelled upper levels  - "Railings with Warnings"
• Railings - Top Rail Properties
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 1 - Top Rail Transitions
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 2 - Railing Extents  
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 3 - Railing Sketch Offsets & Transitions
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 4 - Rail Termination Visibility
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 5 - Rail Extension Length
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 6 - Subcategory Over-rides 
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 7 - Support Spacing
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 7a - Support Spacing Postscript
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 8 - Moving Handrail Supports  
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 9 - Handrail Supports on Multistorey Stairs (Revit v2018)
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 10 - Split Railings
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 11 - Rail  Heights
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 12 - Top vs Handrail Terminology
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 13 - Handrail Support Family Types
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 14 - Railing Baluster Height Top Offset
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 15 - Railing  Lateral Offsets
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 16 - Rail Hand Clearance Property
• Weird Railing Stuff - part 17 - Stepped Railing
•  
  

 

Revit Stair and Railing Enhancement Requests

Autodesk  now have a 'Revit Ideas' website that allows you to add your own enhancement requests and vote for those posted by others.  If any idea gets sufficient votes, Autodesk might just implement the feature, so I have compiled a list of stair/railing related ideas - why not head over there and vote for some of these requests, in the hope that they finally get fixed.  We are getting a little fed up with temporary solutions . . . .

Temporary Bamboo Staircase - Myanmar

Stairs with No Railings

We are still waiting for an overhaul for the railing tools.  In the meantime, we have to live without - so here are some stairs with no railings:

Cappadocia, Turkey

Bayamo, Cuba - No railings to impede the morning dash for the train

Malaga, Spain

Sint-Maarten

Ahungalla, Sri lanka

Elbe Mountains, Nr Dresden, Germany

Stepwell, India

Stair Path Arrows
In my series of blog posts, by far the most popular has been the one on Stair Arrows.  What that tells me is that my initial gut feelings about the change of method from inbuilt stair arrows to stair direction tags was correct - it is clunky and not intuitive!  The pity is that it is not such a bad idea to use tags - it just isn't well executed.  It could easily be improved by:

• allowing us to duplicate views with stair arrows; 
• copy and paste stair arrows from one view to another; 
• tag all untagged stairs

Pailon Del Diablo, Ecuador

Ladder Via Crucis, Spain