All projects

Transfer-Zone

Revit-Dynamo Configurator

Render of an activated rooftop community space with planting, seating and a pergola above a city skyline
Fig. The vision: activating the rooftop as a community transfer zone

Built a powerful Revit-Dynamo configurator designed to tackle the urban housing challenge by enhancing existing buildings. The tool automates the design and implementation of architectural “Transfer Zones” — from converting windows into Juliet balconies to creating communal rooftop spaces. By integrating a user-friendly interface with a robust Python-driven logic engine, this tool streamlines the architectural workflow, enabling rapid and efficient revitalization of urban housing stock.

Rather than redrawing each intervention by hand, the architect selects a building — or the entire project — from a dialog, chooses the type of transfer zone, and the tool resolves the rest: which elements to harvest, which families to swap, where stairs are needed to reach a roof, and how each new element binds back into the Revit model.

  1. RevitLive database · design canvas · parametric framework
  2. DynamoOrchestrator · user interface · data funnel
  3. PythonLogic engine · API communicator · transaction manager
Type
Group project
Team
Hrithik Shetty, Bo Schneider, Sanyam Jain
Collaboration
Goldbeck GmbH
Location
Bielefeld, Germany
Course
TH OWL — MID Computational Design
Existing brick apartment facade beside a hand sketch showing stacked transfer zones inserted into the building
Fig. The premise — finding latent space in existing housing stock

The back-end pipeline

Every run of the configurator follows the same five stages, so adding a new type of transfer zone means extending the logic engine rather than rebuilding the tool.

  1. 01 — User inputConfigurator UI, selection scope, preset design choices
  2. 02 — Data extractionHarvest element IDs, project categories and families, local and global parameters
  3. 03 — Computational logicConditional rule-based checks, CPython script using the Revit API
  4. 04 — Geometry generationCreate elements with Dynamo nodes, replace family types with updated parameters
  5. 05 — Bake into RevitDisable element binding, place family instances through a Python transaction

Design goals

  • Intelligent automation
  • Project scalability
  • Data-driven precision
  • Design versatility
  • Rapid exploration
  • Robust reliability
Process spread: the five-stage data workflow, the Python roof-access routine, the Roof Transfer Zone dialog, and a visual walkthrough of the configurator interface
Fig. Back-end data workflow, intelligent roof-access automation, and a walkthrough of the configurator UI
Process spread: the Data Shapes plugin used to build the interface, the element-binding toggle, sill-height updates, the custom Python node for roof stair access, and the full Dynamo graph
Fig. Building the interface with Data Shapes, disabling element binding, and the custom Python nodes behind the graph
Axonometric view of four housing blocks with one selected by a cursor in the configurator Watch the configurator workflow
Fig. Live demonstration of the configurator workflow