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?
Land features should absolutely be modelled when designing a building because they are incredibly influential in how the project is designed. For example, if a building is built into the side of a mountain, the slope of the ground has an effect on the usable square footage of the rooms. If I were to model a building on a flat surface when it will eventually be placed on a sloped surface, I would have an inaccurate model with critical errors in floor planning.
The aspects most affected by terrain features would be interior lower level floor plans, expected price of the overall construction, expected elevation of levels, ground stability, and orientation of the building.
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?
What is currently in demand within the market now. Are people looking for buildings with high ceilings? Are they willing to pay more money for these features?
- From a designer's perspective?
What is the most aesthetically pleasing and what fulfills a purpose within the space.
- From an engineer's perspective?
The amount of light coming into the building, the amount of heat energy, and the costs/benefits of the different choices of heights.
- From a builder's perspective?
What provides the stability demanded by the building.
- From an owner's perspective?
What does the owner like the most? What do they see themselves using and enjoying? What provides the most utility?
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)?
The UCSD library is an interesting example of this.
- What were the advantages or reasons for non-vertical stacking?
The purpose behind the design of this building was to provides maximum daylight, flexibility for floor arrangements, and provides easy assess to different areas within the building.
Also, they probably just thought it looked cool and wanted to make a statement about the university.
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?