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?
I think it is a bit of both. This is where the geotechnical engineers come into play. Their site analysis will tell us how accomodating the soil is. I would probably lean towards adapting the building to the terrain but if there is benefit to adjusting the terrain, then it should be considered during preliminary design.
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?
From a real estate developer’s perspective, more stories means more rentable spaces. Given that there are usually zoning restrictions, being able to have as many stories as you can while not exceeding the maximum height requirement is very important.
From a designer’s perspective, high ceilings, especially in lobby spaces, makes for nicer looking designs. So, perhaps designers might prefer to sacrifice some retail spaces for a better looking building.
From an engineer’s perspective, it is important to accomodate MEP between stories. So, a clear floor-to-floor height of 10 ft could mean an actual floor-to-floor height of 13 or 14 ft. This is also important for the builder because they need to be able to actually put all this together.
The owner should take all of this into account when making decisions on floor-to-floor heights in a multi-story building.
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?
I believe that, through years of experience, the industry has been able to determine stair dimensions best fit for human health, safety and well-being. Furthermore, they were probably also able to optimize the design to get maximum strength with minimum material usage.
Building modeling can help prevent mistakes by being able to see prior to construction whether the proposed stairs will work in the actual building.