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Username: Mike Kelly Book: Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 Essentials: AUTODESK OFFICIAL TRAINING GUIDE. No part of any chapter or book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written permission for reprints and excerpts from the publisher of the book or chapter. Redistribution or other use that violates the fair use privilege under U.S. copyright laws (see 17 USC107) or that otherwise violates these Terms of Service is strictly prohibited. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of U.S. Federal and Massachusetts laws.

Updating the Massing Study

Begin by selecting the mass in the default 3D view and then clicking the Edit In-Place button on the Model panel. Doing so returns you to In-Place editing mode and allows you to have specific control over mass geometry. You're going to modify the east and west faces, moving each face 40-0 [12 m] to the center. Hovering over and selecting the east face of the upper mass displays a temporary dimension and the shape handles. Select this dimension and, by clicking on the blue text, change the value from 300-0 [91 m] to 2600 [80 m]. Do the same for the middle and lower east faces. Now the gross floor area is closer to 3.25 million square feet (Figure 2.31), or about 302,000 square meters. We quickly and easily got the program where it needs to be. FIGURE 2.31 Resulting gross floor area

We also need the program to be closer to 3.5 million square feet. A quick discussion with the designer reveals that the base of the building is meant to hold important meeting and conference spaces. So you'll extend the eastern base of the building to 300 [91 m]. Once again, you do so by repeating the previous steps of selecting the mass and returning to In-Place editing mode. Make certain that the base element is 300 deep and then finish the mass. Once this is done, the mass will look like Figure 2.32 and the gross floor area will be within the required program. FIGURE 2.32 Final mass

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If you would like to download the completed Revit file, you can find it in the Chapter 2 folder at the book's web page. The file is called c02 Massing Exercise.rvt. THE ESSENTIALS AND BEYOND Ultimately, masses can be used to host relationships to real building elements that would otherwise be nearly impossible to maintain. Mass floors can be used to control the extents of real floors. Many times this will allow you to change location of many slab edges at once by changing the mass and then updating the floors within that mass. Masses can also host walls, curtain walls, and roofs. This allows you to create (and modify) complex design forms that would be nearly impracticable to assemble bit by bit. The idea is that you're working from general to specific: Get the big ideas down first (as masses) and then go back and assign real building elements to those faces to build the building. But keep in mind that it's unlikely you'll only be able to use one mass to host all of your building elements. You may need one mass to host floors and control slab edges, another to host roofs, and even another to host walls and curtain wall systems. Don't be afraid to use overlapping masses in these situations to control different host elements. More specific control will often require overlapping masses. But for initial design/programming purposes, using a single mass to resolve gross floor areas is often sufficient!

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ADDITIONAL EXERCISES After you've created your mass and mass floors, use the Floor By Face tool to assign real floors to the mass floors. Modify the mass and remake the geometric floors that you created in the previous item. Experiment with walls and curtain walls by using the Pick Face tool to assign walls to the face of the mass. Modify the mass and remake the walls and curtain walls created in the previous item. Explain what you would do if you wanted to control floors and walls with a mass but the floors and the walls didn't always align. For example, what would you do if the floors were set back or deviated from the face of the mass?

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