Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Project 1 ARCH 653


In project 1, I have tried to model the Town Hall building by Revit and develop a parametric model of a complex part of the building. This building is designed by Alvar Aalto and located in Saynatsalo, Finland.

This building is a municipal building to serve the expanding community. The building is constructed by restrained palette of natural materials- mainly brick, stone, wood and copper- and structurally, the building is straight forward with reinforced concrete columns, floor slabs and ceilings.

I have used Revit Architecture 2011 for developing the model. During the project, I have sensed that learning how to use Revit follows a sharp learning curve. On the other hand, if one uses this software correctly, it will significantly help to create a BIM model.


 
Figure 1

As the first step of this project, I have worked on the site of the project, levels and gridlines. In this step levels of different parts of the jobsite were calculated and inserted in the topography. I had to deal with two challenges. First, the lack of data on elevation of different points (which was the same case for other steps of the project). The second problem was related to Revit. The interpolation of the elevation of the topography of the job site was not proper some times and needs lots of manual interaction to make it as desired. This approach is time consuming, difficult, and in some cases the desired situation could not be achieved at all. Figure 2 shows the case in which the top surface does not match the required design of the grass steps up to the courtyard. I have spent 4 hours to change the topography manually to match the required elevation; however, it still has some un-leveled parts on these steps.


Figure 2

In the second phase of the project, I have worked on building pads and sub-regions of the project to show the roads and site area and location. Some of the adjacent buildings are shown by mass in the model which can be seen in figure 3 as well. 

In the second phase of the project, I have worked on building pads and sub-regions of the project to show the roads and site area and location. Some of the adjacent buildings are shown by mass in the model which can be seen in figure 3 as well. 




Since the parametric modeling part that I have chosen was very complicated; in the project I have just modeled the council chamber Town Hall building. This part has complicated plans, sections and components that can make a good project.

I can mention these challenging parts in my project:

   1. The 3rd floor of council chamber walls need roof

I had to use mass to model this part of the building. In order to develop the mass, I used 4 different forms and adjust them to get the desired shape. 



   2.  The huge window in the council chamber

I have modified the closest window family to make this window. After regenerating the model and uploading it, I have decided to add the shading part to it. I have sketched the window but whenever I tried to upload it, the Revit went frozen and showed errors. Image of this window is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3


   3. Council chamber furniture

Because the limitations of furniture family in Revit, I had to make most of the furniture in council chamber from the scratch such as

     -    Corner benches (parametrized)
     -    Bench (parametrized)
     -    Chairs
     -    Window






Figure 4

For parametric modeling, I have chosen the roof truss of council chamber. This truss is designed to enable the primary and secondary beams to run in the same direction.

First I have tried to prepare a mass family for each member  of truss which were made length and different angles for the member and bottom and top sections. But I could not make parametric model by that design.

So I had to change my approach. So I have used two dots and defined x, y, and z parameters for each of them. Then I have connected these two dots with a line of adaptive mass. Using this line, I have added the form to the model. Using this form, I could be able to make the truss using very simple formulas. I have used this member in 3 different types to make the truss.

In this model I had one variable; the roof angle. You can see all the formulas which are calculated based on this variable and a constant, which is room dimension.
 

 Figure 5


Figure 6

In another try, I have developed a model to change both room with and  roof angle. But there are some errors in this model because of the cycle in the formulas. I will improve these models in later steps.


Figure 7


 Figure 8