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?
Many aspects are affected by topography, such as: structural design, drainage, circulation, daylighting, and energy performance. As a result, if you manage to accurately model the features of the site, you’re better able to design around these aspects.
When designing a project...
- Should the building adapt to the terrain?
- Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
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?
The proportions are there for safety and accessibility. We’ve built around the human body for so long that the most ideal proportion is known. Building modelling can help coordinate head height clearance, automate riser counts, and more.
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?
You would want to create a custom component when it’s a part of the design’s performance or identity. For example, you have a custom furniture piece that aids to the design’s intention or a facade module that defines the envelope of the building. In most cases, these wouldn’t exist in existing libraries. However, I would use a readily available component where speed and consistency are more important. For example, I would place an existing fridge component rather than customize once since that’s a standard piece.