Coordination of Roofs between Revit Architecture and Structure

[William Troeak]

Recently it was brought to my attention that the way in which I have been modeling and teaching flat roofs in Revit was not the best approach.

In a nut shell I have always used the roof by foot print option for creating roofs. Flat roofs I will add slope by using the points and setting different values.

Now I was told that we should be modeling our flat roofs as slabs in order for Revit Structure to read the roof as a structural element.

What is the best practice for dealing with this and are there any other tricks or workarounds that I should use to ensure that my Revit model plays nicely with Revit Structure?

[patricks]

I suppose if it's a roof consisting of an actual slab on metal deck, with various layers of rigid and tapered insulation above the roof membrane, then I might do the slab portion as a floor, and then place a roof object consisting of the insulation and roofing membranes directly on top of that. Then Structural can just C/M the floor slab portion.

Otherwise I have also been just creating roofs for all roof types. I'm not sure what our structural engineer has been doing for roofs - just drawing them in I guess.

[david_peterson]

I can tell you that our Archies made us model the roof up to the top of deck or slab, along with the steel below it. They link in our model and use it. They apply the tapered insulation to the top. We model as a slab and if the deck slopes we slope it as well.
We just run into problems with warped roofs. We can get close, but not field conditions.