Model an In-Place Family (Only When You Should)

1. Decide whether in-place is actually the right tool:
   • Use in-place for unique, one-off elements shaped by their context: a sculptural reception desk fitted between existing walls, a site-specific canopy, a custom concrete bench following a curved facade.
   • Do NOT use in-place for anything that repeats — every copy of an in-place family duplicates its whole geometry and bloats the file. Repeating elements belong in a loadable .rfa family.
   • Do NOT use in-place as an escape hatch for walls, floors, or stairs that "won't behave" — you lose their system-family intelligence permanently.
2. Start the in-place family:
   1. On the Architecture tab, open Component → Model In-Place.
   2. In the Family Category and Parameters dialog, pick the category the element really is (e.g. Furniture, Generic Models, Walls, Casework).
   3. Name it descriptively (e.g. Reception Desk – Lobby North) — this name appears in schedules.
3. Choose the category deliberately, because it controls everything downstream:
   • Scheduling: a desk categorized as Generic Models never appears in a furniture schedule.
   • Cutting in views: only cuttable categories (e.g. Walls, Roofs, Ceilings) are sliced by plans and sections; Furniture is shown in projection even when the cut plane passes through it.
   • Visibility/Graphics: the element obeys its category's checkbox in VV.
4. Model the geometry with the Forms tools on the Create tab:
   1. Use Extrusion, Blend, Revolve, Sweep, or Swept Blend; draw on Set-selected work planes to build against existing model faces.
   2. Use Pick Lines on surrounding walls so the shape follows its context exactly.
   3. Assign a Material to each solid in Properties while still in edit mode.
5. Click ✓ (Finish Model) — the family closes and behaves as a single selectable element.
6. To change it later, select it and click Edit In-Place; to reuse it once elsewhere, know that Copy/Paste creates a full duplicate family, not a second instance.
7. Verify: cut a Section through it and open the relevant Schedule to confirm it cuts and counts as expected.

Note: The category question is the whole game — geometry is easy to remodel, but an element born in the wrong category quietly corrupts every schedule, tag, and view filter that touches it, and nobody notices until the drawing set is due.

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Taught in

• New for 2026 — first taught in BIM + Computational Workflow 2026.