Page 133 - Divyank Tyagi

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ModeliNG siTe coNTexT 99

Creating a Building pad
A building pad in Revit terminology is a unique model element that resembles a floor. It can have
a thickness and compound structure, it is associated with a level, and it can be sloped using
slope arrows while you’re sketching its boundary. The building pad is different from a floor
because it will automatically cut through a toposurface, defining the outline for your building’s
cellar or basement.
The process of creating a building pad is virtually identical to that of creating a floor. Let’s
run through a quick exercise to create a building pad in a sample project:

1. Open the file c03-Site-Pad.rvt, which can be downloaded from this book’s web page.
2. Activate the floor plan named Site in the Project Browser. You will see an existing topo-
graphic surface and property line. Notice that reference planes were created to demarcate
the required zoning setbacks from the property line. Foundation walls have been created
within these reference planes.
Note that you don’t have to create a property line and walls before creating a building
pad. You might create a building pad before any other building elements. Just realize that
you can utilize the Pick Walls mode to associate the boundary of the building pad with
the foundation walls.
3. Activate the Cellar floor plan from the Project Browser.
4. Go to the Massing & Site tab in the ribbon, and click the Building Pad button. In the
Properties palette, change the Height Offset From Level value to 0.
5. Switch to Pick Walls mode in the Draw panel of the contextual ribbon, and then pick the
inside edges of the four foundation walls. You can use the Tab-select method to place all
four lines at once.
6. Click the Finish Edit Mode button in the contextual ribbon to complete the sketch, and
then double-click the section head in the plan view to examine your results. Notice that
the top of the building pad is at the Cellar level, and the poché of the topographic surface
has been removed in the space of the cellar (Figure 3.36).

Figure 3.36
This section view
illustrates how
the building pad
adjusts the extents
of the topographic
surface.

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