MARTINA CHERUSE

Using Revit + Enscape to explore faucets and pendants in real time , and letting Dynamo build the whole room from a spreadsheet

Picking a faucet or a pendant shouldn’t take a week of re-renders. With Revit and Enscape running side by side, I swap fixtures in seconds, and the client sees the change live, in full lighting, while we’re still talking.

And when a room needs dozens of fixtures, I don’t place them by hand. Since 2023 (before the AI boom), I’ve been driving whole rooms’ fixture models and materials from a CSV or Excel sheet with Dynamo. Here’s how the workflow fits together.

Real time: Revit on one screen, Enscape on the other

Enscape’s live link is the whole trick. Every change in Revit a new family type, a swapped material, a moved light — shows up in the Enscape window almost instantly. No export, no render queue.

My typical review setup:

1. Revit on the main monitor, with the kitchen or bath open in a working 3D view.
2. Enscape on the second monitor (or the TV in the meeting room), parked at the client’s favorite angle.
3. Saved Enscape views for the key moments: the sink wall, the island under the pendants, the vanity.
4. Lighting set close to real conditions, so a brushed brass faucet actually reads as brushed brass.

Then the conversation becomes: «What about the matte black one?» Click. «And the taller gooseneck?» Click. The client is choosing with their eyes, not from a spec sheet.

Build families that are made to be swapped

Fast swapping depends on how the fixtures are modeled. A few rules I follow:

• Shared insertion points. Every faucet sits on the same deck-mount origin; every pendant hangs from the same ceiling point. Swap the type, and nothing jumps.
• One family, many types or a nested selector. Similar models live as types in one family. Very different geometry goes in separate families loaded into the same category, so Type Selector still does the job.
• Finish as a material parameter. Chrome, brushed nickel, matte black and brass are material choices, not separate models. One faucet geometry, four finishes.
• Pendants carry their own light. Each pendant family includes its light source, so Enscape shows the real glow and shadow, not just the shade.
• Keep it light. Manufacturer downloads are often too heavy. I simplify meshes so the live link stays smooth during a meeting.

Whole rooms from a spreadsheet with Dynamo

Yes, it’s possible — and I’ve been doing it since 2023, without AI. Instead of placing every sink, faucet, sconce, and pendant by hand, the room’s fixture schedule lives in a CSV or Excel file, and a Dynamo graph builds the room from it.

From days to seconds

Revit gives you the data, Enscape gives you the picture, and Dynamo gives you the speed. Together they turn fixture selection from a slow back-and-forth that can last days into a live design session and turn a full room setup into running a graph.

If you’re still placing fixtures one by one, try it on your next kitchen. Questions about the graph or the spreadsheet setup? Drop them in the comments; happy to share what’s worked for me.