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?
The windows and flow of light. You can’t build windows into the earth. You could, but probably only for a niche client. When a building is sunk into the earth or built above on a platform, windows are incredibly important. Windows are the eyes of the building. People congregate around windows especially when they frame a view.
When designing a project...
- Should the building adapt to the terrain?
- Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
The building should definitely adapt to the terrain. Why choose a site if all you’re going to do is destroy everything? The building should be adapted to the terrain. it will make the layout far more interesting and organic.
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?
I think countertops are really important to customize. I don’t like the ones they give us in Revit. Another thing that I customized is the roofs of my structures. I wanted all of them to be solidly cast in concrete and be monolithic. I think when you have a vision in mind then customization is really key.