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?
Accurately modeling the toposurface in a digital model is important because it affects how your building interacts with the real site. The terrain influences foundation levels, grading, drainage, and access points. It also helps you set realistic building elevations, and coordinate site elements like driveways or landscaping. In many states, it’s very typical to have a basement embedded in a grade on a hill of land, where the basement is able to receive some daylighting with regular windows- that is one example of where accurately modeling land features can aid in design.
When designing a project...
- Should the building adapt to the terrain?
- Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
This question reminded me of a video many students might recognize from Martin Fischer’s project management class (CEE100): it’s the design of a home for war veteran who lost 3 of his limbs and wanted to live somewhere with discrete accessibility features. One of the home’s main accessibility features was a garage in the basement that allowed the man to easily get from his car to an elevator going to the ground and 2nd floor. However, they spent most of the entire project just digging out said basement from their land preserve lot that started out flat. It is odd to me to render a design that would require a client spend more money and time, when instead, design can embrace the natural land form.
Ideally, a building should adapt to terrain as much as possible. Working with the natural landform reduces erosion, grading, other sustainability concerns, and more. In some cases, it might be necessary to make adaptations to land such as for drainage, accessibility, laying foundations, etc. There exists a balance between the two.
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 follow specific proportions because tread length and riser height must be compatible for comfort and ease of walking. If risers are too tall or treads too short, stairs become unsafe or tiring to use. Building codes exist for stair proportions.
I had a lot of trouble getting stairs to work with my model, but that’s because Revit wouldn’t allow me to deviate from compliant rise/run dimensions. Otherwise, I probably would’ve designed something completely unusable or unsafe if constructed in the real world.
side note: The Anderson collection on campus has really shallow risers that some people might marvel at because they allow you to reflect on the change of scenery and emergence of art and such with a slower pace of walking, but, personally, I really dislike them… because they take forever to get up just one level.