Conceptual Design and Early Studies |
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Massing Best Practices |
| In the model shown in Figure 8.14, the differentiation of functions is simple, and the building has mixed uses. Currently, you can’t assign different functions to sub-elements in a massing family, nor create a schedule of the three functional zones in the one mass. All the forms used in the family use one set of family parameters. To overcome this limitation, and for cases where you have more than one function in the same volume, you will need to make separate masses for each functional form. In Figure 8.15, a separate massing element were created for the retail, hotel, and restaurants sec-tions of the building and stuck on top of each other. |
Figure 8.14
Massing form with mulitple uses—a chal-lenge with Revit |
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When you make separate masses, be sure to create them one on top of the other, using the pre-vious as a reference that you pick for the sketch of the next one. Be sure to also lock the sketches to another so that if the one form changes, the other one will also follow the change.
The usual scenario would be: you have the basic shape of the building established, but you need to divide it into separate functional zones: shops, then 20 floors of hotel, and then 10 floors of res-taurants. Revit does not have tools to split a mass into separate masses so you will need to redo the mass and create three separate mass elements for each of the functional zones. By building each form on top of another, you can create parametric constraints between the elements.
Using the Pick option when sketching each shape, click existing geometry. That way, when one element’s sketch changes, the change will propagate to other elements
In this example, floor area faces were added to the original mass on the first, fifth and twenty-fifth floor in order to have geometry to pick when sketching the separate masses that describe different functions. The lower mass spans from Level 1 to Level 5, the middle mass spans from Level 5 to 25, and the top mass starts at 25 and spans upward. At each level, you can reference other geometry when sketching. Once you have made separate masses, they can be color coded per func-tion—so you get a graphically clear mass and you can schedule them per function. |
Figure 8.15
Make new masses based on the original, and then delete or hide the original. By having created each mass sketch based on and locked to the the sketch of the under-laying mass, any changes to the one mass will affect change of the shape of the other. |
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| After you’ve reviewed a couple of design options with the client, a decision is made and you need to move forward. To the real project! Moving to the next stage is simple: You can convert the mass into building components using specially designed tools. Let’s look at these tools now. |
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| Wall by Face |
Creating walls by face is simple: Click the Wall By Face tool on the Massing Design bar, and start applying it to faces of the masses. Note that you can create walls by face on vertical and inclined faces or arc faces of a mass exclusively. Wall by face cannot be applied to horizontal faces. You can begin applying generic walls that you later swap with exact wall types that you’ll be using; or, if you want to make early renderings that convey color and texture, apply the types of walls that you believe represent your idea the best and contain the texture/material/color information. Cost esti-mates are generated early in the process, so you’ll soon need to move from abstract forms to the real wall types.
Many of the rules and principles behind standard wall creation should be followed here as well. It’s important to correctly set your wall location (we advise using wall exterior face to keep the wall coincident with the outer boundary of the mass shape).
For example, imagine that you’ve created a conceptual mass study in SketchUp and imported it into Revit as a mass element. Using the Wall By Face tool, you can start applying generic walls to the mass immediately.
Keep these limitations in mind: |
- Any wall in Revit can be converted into a curtain wall. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with walls created with the Wall By Face option. To make curtain walls, you need to use the Cur-tain System By Face tool.
- You can’t edit the shape of the wall that is created with the Wall By Face tool. To do that, you must change the shape of the underlying mass.
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| Floor by Face |
Only after you’ve applied floor area faces to the masses (as explained earlier in this chapter) can you apply real floor elements to them. Select the Floor by Face tool, and start selecting the floor area faces to which you want to assign a floor. You have to click the Create Floors button on the Options bar, or nothing will happen.
To accommodate floor creation in a tower with many floors, you can check the Select Multiple option on the Options bar; you can then begin picking all the floor area faces to which you wish to apply floors and finish with the Create Floors tool.
The Floor Area Faces tool slices the mass horizontally, creating horizontal floor plates. As shown in Figure 8.16, you can always slope those floors later by using the Floor Edit tools available from the Options menu when a floor is selected or edit the sketch of the floor and add a slope arrow while being in the sketch mode of the floor. |
Figure 8.16
Click on a grip control to change the floor slope |
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It’s worth mentioning that when you create a floor by face, the Options bar includes an Offset parameter:
Insert Image
This isn’t the vertical offset of the floor from the level you can find in the Floor properties; it’s an offset of the floor sketch from the current floor area boundary. If you add a positive value to the offset, the floor plate becomes smaller than the actual floor area (Figure 8.17) |
Figure 8.17
Use offset to make slab smaller or larger than the floor area face. |
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| Roof by Face |
You’ve learned how easy it is to apply walls and floors by face. Roofs follow the same basic principles but are more flexible. You can create roofs by face on planar faces, arcs, or other shapes defined by extrusions, revolves, sweeps, and blends. The only face on which you can’t create a roof by face is a vertical surface.
Note these limitations: |
- You can’t pick a vertical face for a roof.
- Once a roof is created using the By Face method, you can’t edit its sketch. If you created a roof by face and need to change its sketch, you must change the shape of the underlying mass from which the roof has been derived; only that way can you affect the shape of the cre-ated roof.
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| Curtain System by Face |
Curtain systems is a handy tool. With one click, you can convert a face of a building into a curtain system that you can predefine with parameters to match your needs. Curtain systems can pick any nonplanar face and are composed of grids, panels, and mullions. Make sure the curtain system type you choose has a predefined Curtain Grid layout.
Keep these limitations in mind: |
- You can’t edit curtain system sketches. A curtain system made by face requires mass editing to change.
- You can’t always predict the x or y coordinate system applied to the face. You may have to make new types in order to meet your requirements
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| Technical Details You Should Be Aware of When Scheduling |
It’s important that your mass model be modeled properly from a geometrical point of view to sup-port downstream applications of walls, floor, and roofs. Look at the towers shown in Figure 8.18. If you simply draw the two towers and schedule them, the schedule reports the values for the indi-vidual towers.
If you move the position of the towers so that they intersect, the schedule reports the same cal-culated values: Revit doesn’t join the geometries and eliminate the overlapping areas automatically (Figure 8.19). If you place different masses that aren’t joined but overlap, when using the Floor By Face tool, the intersecting portions of floor slabs overlap and cause duplicate area calculations. To resolve this issue, you need to join geometry.
To get the correct schedule that represents the actual volume, surface, and floor area values, use the Join The Geometry tool to join the two masses. Whichever mass you used first is the one that penetrates into the other mass. The schedule now reflects the values of the joined, merged geome-tries (Figure 8.20). |
Figure 8.18
Unconnected mass forms and their schedule |
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Figure 8.19
Mass forms intersect but are still not joined, the schedule still re-ports the sum of the area and volume (incorrect) |
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Figure 8.20
Mass forms joined. The Schedule reports correct surface and volume. |
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Joining the masses creates a relationship between the two masses. This means that if you move the location or edit the shape of one, the joined geometry automatically updates in a Boolean man-ner. Only in cases where you move one mass completely away from the other mass will you get an error message that the two masses don’t intersect anymore and you need to use the Unjoin Geom-etry option to fix the error.
Once the masses have been joined, you can begin to apply elements by face (Figure 8.21). |
Figure 8.21
Mass with applied walls by face |
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