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?
Why is it important to accurately model the land features of your project site with a toposurface? (1) Lower the cost. In actual construction, it is unlikely that there will be behaviors such as digging the mountain to level the ground. For example, building on the hillside is a good response to the terrain. (2) Protect the environment. For example, there is a river, a lake, or an ancient tree that needs to be preserved in the site. (3) Artistic beauty. Correspondence between buildings and terrain can increase the sense of architectural art.
What aspects of a building design are most affected by the terrain features? (1) Building layout. Under the conditions of flat terrain, the layout of the building has a lot of flexible room available for adjustment and can have a variety of layout forms; under the conditions of undulating terrain, the layout is bound to be restricted in many aspects. For example, in inland areas with undulating terrain where the economy is relatively underdeveloped, the investment is relatively large and construction condition is poor, the maintenance is not easy, so that the building layout is relatively simple. (2) The height of each floor and overall building height. In architectural design, a very low floor height can give people a sense of depression. But the height is too high will increase unnecessary costs. Therefore, a reasonable story height is very important for the building. For buildings with poor terrain, generally the number of floors and the height of the story floors are not very high because of the load-bearing problem and emergency avoidance problems.
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?
What are the advantages of stacking the levels of a multi-story building vertically? (1) The structural analysis is simpler, and the building load transfer mode is more reasonable. (2) The construction process is simpler, and the possibility of construction accidents is reduced. (3) The design is simpler and time-saving. Can you share an interesting example of a building that didn't vertically? Arrillaga Dining Hall at Stanford Campus. What were the advantages or reasons for non-vertical stacking? (1) Spatial distribution and room separation is more flexible. Owners have more choices. (2) In the design, we can fully consider the difference of each floor, such as the difference in lighting and ventilation.
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?
A case: When I want to place a carpet with a unique pattern. How do you decide? I prefer to use readily available components, because it saves a lot of time when I am designing. But sometimes I cannot find the right components online or I need to refine the components after the initial design, I have no choice but to customize a new component :(