Key concepts & glossary

This article explains the core ideas behind how Motif Design works, then defines the terms you'll see throughout the app and the rest of the help center.

The big picture

Motif Design is a browser-based BIM platform where architects and AI agents model, evaluate, and document a building together.

Projects hold models. A project is the whole job — every model in it, the drawings and sheets generated from those models, the reference material the team works from, and the people and agents who have access.

Models are where you build. A model is a building, or a part of one: the 3D geometry, the levels it's organized by, and the views and sheets generated from it. A project can hold several, and models can be linked to each other.

Everything in a model is made of assets. An asset is a definition — a wall type, a door, a title block — and placing one in your model creates an instance of it. Change the definition and every instance updates. This is the same idea as a Revit family, with one key difference: an asset can carry more than one variant (Revit would call these types), so a single door asset can hold several sizes and configurations.

Geometry is parametric and associative. Walls are hosted by levels, openings are hosted by walls, and views are generated from the model. Move a level and what's constrained to it follows. Change the model and the plans change with it — the views are live, not exported snapshots.

Agents work inside the model, not beside it. Motif's AI agents read and edit the live model directly. You talk to them in a thread, and when you land on a sequence worth repeating, you save it as a skill and run it again later.

Your existing models come in. Publish from Revit or Rhino using the Motif plugin. An imported model isn't a dead reference — you can navigate it, ask agents about it, and model against it.

Glossary

Structure: projects, models, and assets

• Organization — Your firm. Admins manage members and create projects.

• Project — A building or a job. A project contains all of its models, the drawings and sheets inside those models, the reference material in Context, and the people and agents with access. Projects can't be nested inside other projects.

• Model — The live building model you work in, and the container for everything in it: assets, levels, materials, styles, views, sheets, and drawing sets. A project can hold more than one model, and a model can link to others. Version history is kept per model.

• Asset — A definition of a piece of content — a wall, a door, a title block, a material. Placing an asset in a model creates an instance of it, and changes to the definition flow through to every instance. The closest Revit equivalent is a family.

• Instance — A single placed copy of an asset in your model. Instance properties (this door's hardware set) are separate from asset properties (every door of this kind).

• Element — The smallest unit of content in Motif: an individual piece of geometry or annotation. Elements live inside assets.

• Property — Parameter, a named container holding a single value.

The workspace

• Canvas — The 3D modeling viewport. Scroll to zoom, right-click to orbit, and use the View Navigator to snap to a standard view. Fly mode (W A S D, plus Q and E) walks you through interiors.

• Modeling and detailing modes — The two halves of the toolbar. Modeling mode is for building geometry; detailing mode is for annotation and drawing work.

• Content Library — The panel listing what's available to place in your model, as a tree.

• Motif Standard Library — A view-only library of standard asset definitions — walls, doors, windows, and so on — maintained by Motif and seeded into every model.

• External models — The list of other models linked into the one you have open. It's curated, not automatic: models appear here when someone adds them, and you control which are displayed.

• Properties panel — The panel showing and editing whatever you have selected.

Levels, datums, and geometry

• Level — A named horizontal reference elevation. Levels organize your model by story, and every level gives you a plan view. Levels published from Revit come across automatically if they have rooms.

• Datum — A reference that constrains geometry — a level, a grid, a work plane. Move the datum and the geometry constrained to it follows.

• Work plane — The reference surface content is sketched on. Some are created implicitly; others you name and reuse.

• Boundary asset — Motif's term covering floors, ceilings, roofs, and slabs — the flat, sketched elements defined by an outline.

• Opening — A void hosted in a wall, floor, or roof. Doors and windows are hosted openings.

• Parametric asset — An asset whose geometry is generated from its properties rather than drawn by hand, so changing a value rebuilds the geometry. Because there's no authored content to open, parametric assets don't have an asset editor.

Views, sheets, and documentation

• View — A generated drawing of the model: floor plan, reflected ceiling plan (RCP), section, elevation, or 3D view. Views are live and bidirectional — the model updates the view, and work you do in the view updates the model. Each view carries its own scale, crop, and visibility settings.

• View tag — The annotation marking a section, elevation, or level head, linked to the view it refers to.

• Crop region — The boundary controlling how much of the model a view shows.

• Sheet — A drawing sheet at real-world size, with a title block, onto which you place views. Sheets are identified by number and name — for example, "A201 – Elevations."

• Viewport — A placed view on a sheet, at a set scale.

• Title block — An asset placed from the Content Library onto a sheet. Title blocks are editable.

Agents and skills

• Agent — Motif's AI, working inside the live model. An agent can take the actions you can: answer questions about the model, make changes, generate views, and check the design against requirements. In the app it speaks as the product — you'll see "Motif is…" rather than a separate assistant name.

• Thread — A conversation with the agent.

• Skill — A saved, repeatable procedure the agent can run — the method, not a recording of your clicks. Pull one into a thread by typing a slash, or add it as a chip in the composer. You can pass a run note along with it to adjust that run.

• Artifacts — The project tab where skills and other agent output live.

• Project Context — A per-project store of the material that should inform project decisions: client brief, specifications, BIM standards, site photos, surveys, spreadsheets, diagrams. Available to people and to agents.

• AI credits — The units consumed when you interact with the agent. Credits are pooled across your organization and allowances are monthly — they don't roll over.

Interoperability

• Plugin — The Motif connector installed in Revit or Rhino.

• Publish — Sending a model from Revit or Rhino into a model in your Motif Design project. Geometry, rooms, and levels come across together. Re-publishing sends an updated version. ⚠ Re-publishing behaves differently by tool. Re-publishing from Revit replaces the imported model, and Motif-native work added to that model is lost. Rhino preserves it. Do Motif-native modeling in a separate model if you expect to re-publish from Revit.

• Linked model — Another model brought into the one you're working in, so your consultant and coordination context sits alongside your own work.

Roles and access

• Admin / Member — Organization-level roles. Admins manage members and create projects.

• Guest — Someone outside your organization invited to a specific project. They see only the projects they were invited to.

• Owner — The project role held by whoever created the project.

• Editor — A project role with write access.

• Viewer — A project role with read access.

Need help? Reach out to us at community.motif.io