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?
When designing a project...
- Should the building adapt to the terrain?
- Or, should you adapt the terrain to the building?
A combination of both! The building should take into account, and even take advantage of, the terrain, but some terrain will likely need to be excavated regardless in order to create a structurally sound 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?
An advantage of vertical stacking is that it makes piping and HVAC easier; if the same types of rooms are in the same location on each floor, it is easier to plan these systems. Additionally, it provides aesthetic consistency and allows for more streamlined construction
In a stadium or theater, the floor plates generally change shape to allow people on the upper floors to look down at what is occurring on the ground floor. The upper floor plates generally don’t stretch all the way across the width of the building in this case.
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?
It is worthwhile to create custom components in Revit when you want to make something specific to the space in which you’re working. For example, if you want built-in cabinetry or shelves to precisely wrap around a room, it might be useful to make custom components. If something needs to be customized in order to maintain consistency between the model and the end product, it makes sense to customize it, but many things do not need to be represented perfectly for the overall design concept to come across.