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Module 7 - Design Project Brief: Structural Modeling & Coordination

Overview

In this assignment, you’ll design the structural framing system for the multi-story office building that you designed in Module 6. The focus of this assignment is on:

  • Learning to model the essential structural framing elements.
  • Integrating the architectural and structural model of a proposed design using ACC Model Coordination.

Getting Started

Use this Starting Point file to create your new structural model:.

Design Approach

The starting point for structural modeling is often an architectural model of the proposed design created by the architects and planners on the project’s design team.

Using that architectural model as a starting point, structural engineers typically:

  • Create a new structural model using a project template set up for structural design.
  • Link the architectural model to the new structural model to use the elements in the architectural model as references as the structural elements are modeled.
  • Copy and link to key elements that define the spatial framework — for example, the Levels that define the floor-to-floor heights and any Grids that may have been defined to place walls or columns — into the structural model. Using linked copies of these Levels and Grids to place the new structural elements helps to keep the structural and architectural elements aligned and coordinated.

These steps create a baseline environment for modeling the structural elements. With this spatial framework established, structural engineers can then::

  • Choose the primary material for the structural elements -- concrete, steel, or wood -- often based on constructability considerations (cost, project location, material availability) and the desired appearance.
  • Modeling the structural framing elements:
    • structural columns
    • beams and beam systems
    • structural floors
    • structural walls and braces
    • foundations

After the elements of the structural framing are modeled, it’s helpful to integrate the architectural and structural models into a single integrated environment that allows you to visualize how the systems work together and identify any potential conflicts.  And you’ll be doing that using the ACC Model Coordination mode.

Before You Start Modeling - SIMPLIFY AS NEEDED

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The point of this module is to gain some experience with a simple workflow for modeling basic structural elements.

This course does not cover advanced structural design strategies, so if you’ve created a very exciting, daring, complex architectural form — with gravity-defying cantilevers, twisting walls, and sloping surfaces — you should think about ways to SIMPLIFY your form into something more manageable before diving into the structural modeling.

Think about a more regular form (with structural columns vertically) before you get started. And don’t think about this as a defeat. You’re not giving up on your beautiful design idea from Module 6 — you’re just being realistic about what you can reasonably accomplish in one week at this very busy point in the quarter.

Designing the structural framing system for a complex, cantilevered or twisting form can be a HUGE task — far beyond the scope of what we’re looking for here.

What’s Expected

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Step 1A: Create a new structural model and link your architectural model into it.

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Step 2: Plan out the structural grid that you’ll use to organize your structural elements

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Step 3: Model the structural framing elements for one level of your proposed design.

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Step 4: Copy the structural framing elements from this one level to the other levels of your building.

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Step 5: Model the structural foundations that will support the framing elements.

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Step 6: Create structural views to share your design.

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Step 7: Place all of these requested structural views on sheets.

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Step 8: Integrate the Architectural and Structural Models using ACC Model Coordination

Sharing Your Project

Please follow the instructions in the Canvas assignment to upload your building model to your folder on Autodesk Construction Cloud (BIM 360) Documents and create a new post sharing your project on this linked Notion page.

✏️Module 7 - Design Project Submissions: Structural Modeling & Coordination

Points to Ponder / Wrap-Up Questions

Please choose 3 of the following Points to Ponder questions and share your comments on this linked Notion page.

🤔Module 7 - Points to Ponder