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 land features of the project site allows the designer to see how the building will fit into the surrounding space. As we saw in this past module, the site can call for a design that is partially below grade which affects aspects such as material selection. Furthermore, the land can influence decisions about a building’s layout and the location of certain features or spaces.
When designing a project...
- Should the building adapt to the terrain?
- Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
I think it is often more cost-effective and efficient to design for the existing terrain. Unless there is a specific feature that requires adapting the terrain, the time and cost associated with earthwork make this option infeasible especially when budgets and project timelines may not be flexible. Modifying the terrain may also require further site analyses which can add costs and delay construction.
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?
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?
During preliminary design, it may be beneficial to create custom components for simple geometries such as shelves or counter spaces in a kitchen. This approach allows the designer to effectively illustrate the space’s purpose without taking too much time to model specific details. Even in final design stages, it may be more effective to model custom features rather than try to find available components that fit the space. For example, I created custom components to model a built-in bar for the kitchen I designed. This approach was quicker and simpler than looking for and testing readily available components.