Module 3 - Points to Ponder

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?
• Depending on the construction project, one might want to adapt the terrain to a building or adapt the building to the terrain. Certain projects might be more cost-efficient to construct by adapting them to their surrounding terrain, while others might be cheaper to cut/fill.

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?

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?
• Building modeling helps determine the exact dimensions and elevations required to design and implement a set of stairs into a project. Modeling software like Revit tells the user the required step height and amount to prevent faults in the design.

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?