Revit families are the building blocks of any BIM project.

Whether it's a sink, a light fixture, a door, or some other element of a building, there's not much point to the entire BIM workflow without Revit families.

Revit Family Therapy

For years, Autodesk included libraries of generic Revit families with each release of Revit. These Revit libraries covered the most commonly used types of products in building design: from beds, to filing cabinets, kitchen appliances, and more. 

Generic Revit families are useful from a general design aspect - they provide geometrical and spacial information off of which an architect can base the rest of his or her design. But from a pure BIM perspective, the benefits stop there. That's because the foundation of BIM – Building Information Modeling – is the information.  It's the parameters, performance data, manufacturer information, and more that are embedded in Revit families for manufacturer products that make them useful to the building lifecycle beyond initial schematics.

That's why it's essential for architecture, design, or engineering firms to develop trusted sources for Revit families from which they can obtain manufacturer products when they need them. These sources need to be trusted not only to have a large library of Revit families, but to have families that are well-built (lean, without too much "heavy" data), current (not a model that is no longer in production), and private (their private information or project information won't be shared after downloading).

So Where Should Architects Look for Revit families?

BIMsmith Market is quickly becoming the top destination for architects and other building professionals to download free Revit families.

BIMsmith was founded and built by architects who designed the platform to serve more needs than one. Finding Revit families on BIMsmith is easy – but the platform equips design professionals to actually research the products they are viewing before downloading. 

The Revit families found on BIMsmith contain structured data that is indexed by the platform's powerful filtering tools. That way, not only can you search for exactly what you want (like "120V LED Recessed Light"), but you can filter down by the criteria that matter, such as by certification (EnergyStar, GreenGuard, ADA Compliant, Made in the USA, etc.), MasterFormat, Omniclass, MasterSpec available, material samples available, and more. Of course, if you want to just search for a manufacturer that you trust, you'll find entire BIM Libraries like the VELUX BIM library, or you can start by browsing a category like "Revit skylights."

Plus - because BIMsmith is run by a team of architects, all of the Revit families listed are built to the highest standards by the BIMsmith team or otherwise are run through a series of rigorous quality assurance tests until they meet those standards.

Try your luck now - try browsing BIMsmith Market and see for yourself.