AUGIWorld Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 20) Revit Architecture Beam Me Up, Scotty! Is Revit Structure Necessary? Editor’s note: Building designers, architects, and engineers of all stripes have to work with each other effectively, efficiently, and quickly. Autodesk Revit, as a platform supporting integrated design applications, is built to maximize collaboration. This month’s column is not designed to inflame tensions between the building professions, but to encourage non-engineer designers to explore structural modeling. You may be surprised to find out how much structural work you can accomplish entirely inside Revit Architecture! –Chris Fox, AUGI Revit Editor In the frame The nostrum that architects don’t need to worry about what holds their buildings up because the engineer will fix it has never really been true. This month we take a good look at the Structural Tab in Revit® Architecture, to find out how much structural information you can design and specify in a project without having to look outside your primary application. In some cases, a structural component may be the most effective way to solve an architectural problem! 20 Unless you design buildings composed entirely of prefabricated panels, you have to know how to design a frame. Whether you design skyscrapers, warehouses, or residences, if separated members support other members, that’s a frame. Revit’s framing tools—no surprise—are columns, walls, beams, and braces, along with the very nifty beam system. The Structural Column tool on the Structural tab places a different type of component from the Column tool on the Modeling tab. An architectural column is really a place holder, a hollow décor item that is supposed to blend with walls where it meets them. Architectural columns have no structural properties, no way to place them in multiples, and no way to tag or schedule them. Structural column families are much more complex than that. When you place structural columns, you can tag them automatically, place by grid intersection or architectural column location, and specify either height or depth. If you set up grids in your project, which is worthwhile even in residential work where you may never show the grids on your documents, you can place columns/posts at many locations with a couple of cursor picks. If you move the grids later, the columns move accordingly. Revit Architecture’s Structural wall created from the Structural tab is the same type of component as a wall created from the Basics or Modeling tab, but it has Structural properties that the architectural wall does not, and its Structural Usage instance parameter is set to Bearing. You can set that parameter at any time for any wall; the choices are Non-bearing, Bearing, Shear and Structural Combined. These properties are primarily for scheduling; they do not affect the other properties. Non-bearing walls do not display in Structural views. We’ll talk more about views later. Beams are also complex creatures. They display differently at different levels of detail and according to their structural usage parameters. At Coarse detail level, beams are single lines, which is appropriate for framing plans at certain view scales. Beams can be defined as girders, joists, purlins, horizontal braces, or other, and each category uses a different linetype at coarse detail level. w w w. A U G I . c o m http://augi.com
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