Why is it important to accurately model the land features of your project site with a toposurface?
- What aspects of a building design are most affected by the terrain features?
It is important to accurately model the land features in your model using toposurfaces. It is important especially for the foundation of the building to know what soil layers are underneath, if it soft soil or rock and so on. The shape of the terrain can also impact the forces exerted by wind and/or earthquake on the building. As an example, the wind forces would be larger on a flat empty terrain while earthquake forces differ significantly based on the composition of the soil (soft, hard etc.).
When designing a project...
When designing a building you should try to adapt the building to the terrain. If the terrain does not permit that, you can adapt the terrain to the building. Regardless, in a lot of applications, the terrain must be prepared for the construction of the building (compacting the soil, installing retaining walls etc.).
Why do stairs follow specific proportions with a set relationship between the tread length and riser height?
The stairs should follow specific proportions. In many projects, we would love the stair to occupy as little space as possible. If the stair sizes were not standardized, we could end up with an extremely steep stair. This could work in some applications, but most of the time it would not. Building modelling can be used to accurately calculate the area that the staircase would occupy by using these specific tread and riser proportions.