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?
When designing a project...
- Should the building adapt to the terrain?
- Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
The building should adapt to the terrain for the long-term stability of the building as well as reduced cost of construction. It is better to adapt the building to the terrain as it has naturally developed rather than weaken the foundation through excessive excavating and leveling. Furthermore, excavating, building retaining walls, leveling, and backfilling will add significant costs to a building project.
What considerations affect a project team's decision-making when deciding the floor-to-floor height to use in a multi-story building?
- From a real estate developer's perspective?
- From a designer's perspective?
- From an engineer's perspective?
- From a builder's perspective?
- From an owner's perspective?
What are the advantages of stacking the levels of a multi-story building vertically?
- Can you share an interesting example of a building that doesn’t vertically stack (where the floor plates change their shaped radically between the floor levels)?
- What were the advantages or reasons for non-vertical stacking?
Why do stairs follow specific proportions with a set relationship between the tread length and riser height?
- How can building modeling help prevent the mistakes that often occur when designing and installing stairs?
Stairs are both a functional asset of building as well as a centerpiece item of it. Having a specific proportion of length to height allows for a staircase to useable in a safe manner and be astatically pleasing at the same time. Building modeling will allow for the layout of a staircase to be done ahead of time to make sure that, once construction takes place, it will be safe to use and also have a pleasing appearance.
Describe a case when it would be worthwhile to create a new custom component in Revit… How do you decide when customize versus using readily available components?
Creating a custom Revit element is best when you need to represent a unique building component that has not previously provided by either Revit itself or a manufacturer. The custom elements may be needed when there a requirement for the repeated use of a non-standard size of an item, such as a window. These custom elements will speed up the design period and also provide better control and accuracy of the overall design.
As a designer, it comes down to the efficiency and accuracy of the design whether or not customization should be implemented. If it saves significant time to create a more accurate custom element, then it is worthwhile to do so.