Plumbing Systems - Lena Bakalian

Plumbing System Elements

In my restrooms, I added four toilets for the women’s restrooms and two toilets and two urinals to each men’s restroom. I have two of each restroom on each floor, totaling eight restrooms in the building. When I designed my architectural model, I stacked the restrooms on top of each other; having this core was useful in being able to copy elements across floors. This resulted in me having two separate pipes that span the entire height of the building on each side— each servicing four bathrooms.

3D view
3D view

Piping System

I created about a 1-foot space in the wall behind the plumbing fixtures in my restrooms to allow for room for the pipes to fit. This was really useful in being able to maintain a good slope for my sanitary line without it having to run too far. I used one-inch pipes for the hot and cold piping.

Floor plan view of one of the women’s and men’s bathrooms
Floor plan view of one of the women’s and men’s bathrooms

Section view
Section view

Model coordination view
Model coordination view

Challenges

I had some initial trouble placing the pipes at the correct height and having them connect successfully with the risers. This took a lot of trial and error but eventually I was able to place them in a way that they could connect. I also encountered a challenge connecting pipes that had two horizontal sections, where it would not connect in a cross-shape with the riser. To fix this, I ended up branching one of the sides at a slightly lower level than the other side, which allowed me to create a T shape and then a separate branch a bit lower than the T.