Why is it important to accurately model the land features of your project site with a toposurface?

• Topography can change the design and structural integrity of your building. If you know you will be designing a structure with a hilly and/or difficult terrain, it's important to accurately model the land first.

When designing a project...

• Should the building adapt to the terrain?
• Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
• Either option could work and most buildings occur when both the terrain and structure are adapted accordingly. The site should be dug out so that there's a flat surface to build on and the materiality and design of the structure should be adapted accordingly to the remainder of the terrain (higher load bearing and thermal materials can be placed underground, while lighter materials can be placed above).

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)?
• Innovation Tower in Hong Kong
• What were the advantages or reasons for non-vertical stacking?
• Non-vertical stacking can be used so as to achieve interesting shapes/designs or to terrace a building