Acelab Revit Plugin
connecting materials directly into architects' Workflow.
Plug-in Design ยท Systems Design ยท Cross-Platform Workflows
Seamlessly connect material library to Revit
Architects love Acelabโs cloud library of 100k+ building materials, but their actual execution happens inside Autodesk Revit. Living purely on the web created a broken, error-prone ecosystem loop.
At Acelab we designed a Revit plugin that eliminated the double-entry workflow between Acelab and Revit โ giving enterprise architecture firms a bidirectional, trusted connection between material specification and their live Autodesk model.
One year. Zero prior Revit experience. Shipped to AECOM, JLL, HOK, Sasaki.
6+
Enterprise firms Adopted:
AECOM, JLL, HOK, Sasaki and more..
2
Mapping directions. Both first-class.
One modal.
$โ
Became a premium paid feature. Direct revenue driver for Acelab.
Team & my role
As the lead product designer, I operated at the intersection of product strategy, user research, interaction design, and technical feasibility
Led Discovery focus groups, CX synthesis, design brief and negotiated design intent vs. build feasibility.
Led research and technical handoff through field shadowing, focus groups, and defensive design specs to ensure data integrity.
Architected cross-platform data frameworks and system design to integrate in Revit.
Architected cross-platform data frameworks and system design to integrate in Revit.
The Acelab-Team
Hardik Makrubiya - Lead PM
Armaan Shah - CX
Juliana Zonotto - instructional Designer
E-Verse - Third-Party Revit Devs
Mayank Sharma - BE Dev
Bekele Debisa - FE Dev
Timeline & Status
Timeline Q3 2025 โ Q3 2026
Status Live ยท Premium Feature
The Brief
The Problem, the quick TL;DR
Two tools. No connection.
Hours of reconciliation on every single project.
Problem Statement:
Architects and BIM managers using Acelab for material selection have no way to connect those decisions to their live Revit models.
The pain-point is version drift, duplicated effort, and a fragmented material record that serves neither the design team nor the project documentation.
Solution: A Bi-directional material plugin
Revit <> Acelab
Before โ The Broken Workflow
5 manual steps. Every project.
Select product in Acelab Materials Hub
Manually re-enter in Revit
Product changes mid-project manual update
Keynote .txt file managed by hand in MasterFormat
No single source of truth
After โ What the Plugin Unlocked
Live 1 Step & Bidirectional.
Bidirectional live mapping in either direction
Explicit, confirmable sync, control
Keynote file auto-populated from Acelab database
Product replacement auto-remaps
One source of truth across both tools
Feature Highlights: What we built
You're in control
Establish firm-wide keynote/tag control and set standards once in your Firm Library.
Keynotes Automation
Standardized keynotes values sync bidirectionally with Revit keeping all documentation aligned.
Eliminate Manual Work
Eliminate hours of manual back and forth for keynote entry and cross-referencing across every project
Context & Background
About Acelab Material Hub
Acelabโs Materials Hub is a construction industry platform that helps architects, contractors, and specifiers manage building materials and project schedules from early stage to specifications. It also connects architects with Manufacturers to get quotes and material specs for their projects.
The platform serves major user groups in the Architecture & Construction Industry (AEC):
Architects & Designers
Every material decision from first search for final specs of an architetcural project.
Owners & Developers
Coordinate project delivery with Material Intellegence and get real-time project insights.
Manufacturers & Suppliers
Engage with architects and owners when timing matters most.
The world this plugin
was designed to live in.
What is Revit?
Autodesk BIM Software
Where architects model, document, and coordinate buildings. Used by nearly every major AEC firm.
Families, types, materials, parameters โ a deeply structured, decades-mature data model.
What is a Keynote?
Revit's annotation system
A firm maintained .txt file, organized in MasterFormat.
Every material tag in a drawing set references this file. Firms manage these for years. Corrupting it means corrupting every drawing that references it.
Skip to Final Design
Or keep scrolling to know the design process
Exisiting State
How material mapping works currently?
To design for this complex cross-platform ecosystem, we audited the existing material mapping workflows to understand how architects capture technical data in Autodesk Revit.
Disjointed Context-Switching
Architects leave Revit to find materials
Jumping between browser tabs and the design environment breaks focus and slows down documentation.
Sync conflicts
Manual updates create version risk
A single mismatched parameter between a web collection and an active drawing can cascade into costly errors on site.
BREAKDOWN OF THE GAPS & PAIN POINTS IN THE WORKFLOW
One-way data flow
The desktop file is the only source of truth
No path from web to model means users who prefer cloud-first workflows are stuck.
Keynote Constraints
File-based updates don't scale
Manual keynote management breaks down during heavy documentation โ model connections drop and data corrupts.
User Research
Discovery & Focus Groups
To validate the workflow issues we identified, I moved past standard surveys and ran a dual-layer qualitative discovery strategy: Contextual Inquiry and Focus Groups.
Why a native plugin โ not a web integration?
The real insight was that architects never fully leave Revit during a project.
It's their source of truth. So asking them to context-switch into a separate tool even a well-designed one โ was always going to lose. A plugin removed that ask entirely.
Acelab moves into their space, not the other way around.
Bidirectional live mapping in either direction
Explicit, confirmable sync, control
Keynote file auto-populated from Acelab database
Product replacement auto-remaps
One source of truth across both tools
real-time updates
Design Principles I Established for the Plugin
Revit-native, not web-ported
Automate and manage payroll processing with real-time updates.
Talent management
Automate and manage payroll processing with real-time updates.
Contract oversight
Every sync action must communicate clearly what will happen.
Data-driven decisions
Monitor team actions to optimize decisions and workflows.
Exisiting State
How material mapping works currently?
To design for this complex cross-platform ecosystem, we audited the existing material mapping workflows to understand how architects capture technical data in Autodesk Revit.
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