Lavinia Pedrollo

When designing a project, in most cases the building should adapt to the terrain. However, such a decision (to have the building adapt to the terrain or to adapt the terrain to the building) depends on several factors, for example, the site conditions, environmental considerations, and design preferences. When the building adapts to the terrain, the design can be adapted to match the aesthetic of the surroundings, thus preserving the existing landscape and minimizing the environmental impact of the project. When designing my summer house, I followed this approach: I first modeled the toposolid representing the environment around the house, and then I adapted the house (both aesthetic and structural design/overall building and garden shape) to the terrain. Thanks to this approach, I could select the best shape for the summer house to match my neeeds, for example: 1) I could know in advance how deep i could build my pool. 2) I could orient the building to face toards the pool and the lake. 3) I could position all the rooms on the top floor (not intersected with the terrain) so that they could face the lake, thus giving the house inhabitants the best view.

As a side note, there can be cases when the site's topography and/or environmental conditions are not suitable to meet the functional requirements of the building. An example that comes to my mind is building a subway station in a very densely populated city. In this case, one should excavate the terrain first to build the station's subterranean area, and at the same time reinforce the terrain to preserve surface-level buildings and transit infrastructure.

While designing stairs, following the specific proportions with a set relationship between the thread length and the riser height is crucial to ensure the safety and comfort of the user, as well as to ensure the best aesthetic of the stairs and the environment around them.

When design stairs, the first factor to consider safety. Designing the correct relationship between the tread length and riser height may prevent many accidents that would occur otherwise. For example, if risers are too high or treads are too short, users may trip or fall when ascending or descending. On the other hand, if risers are too low or treads are too long, users may experience discomfort or strain. Additionally, providing a comfortable and ergonomic experience for users can be relevant for both public and private spaces to accommodate the needs of people of all ages and physical abilities. Finally, balanced proportions in stair design contribute to the overall aesthetics and architectural design of the building or space.

To address these issues, building modeling can help prevent mistakes in stair design and installation by providing a comprehensive and detailed (with measurements and other specific parameters) 3D representation of the building. In this way, designers can select and modify the best layout for the stairs, choosing the correct layout, dimensions, and safety features. This ensures that issues (wrong proportions between tread length and riser height, insufficient headroom, etc) are addressed in the early stage of the design phase, thus reducing errors during the building phase.

Creating a custom component in Revit is worthwhile when the project's specific needs cannot be met with readily available components (Revit families from online websites or the Autodesk library). When using readily available components, sometimes it happens that specific parameters cannot be changed, like dimensions, materials, or constraints between elements. I describe here a case where it was worthwhile to create a new custom component in Revit, which happened and was particularly useful to me while designing my summer house. I downloaded a nicely designed column to sustain part of my terrace. The column was available in only two overall heights: 8’ and 10’. However, I wanted my building levels to be taller, specifically 12’, to create a sense of expansive and open space. I tried to explore all the parameters that could be changed in my readily available column, unsuccessfully. At the same time, I could not find any other column on the internet that would meet my needs in terms of aesthetic and height constraint of 12’. Consequently, it was worthwhile creating my custom component, that could satisfy my design needs and be at the same time aesthetically pleasing.