Fire Lookout

[Kevin Janik]

We are looking at doing a new fire lookout 50 feet off the group in Revit. Stairs should not be too much of a problem but modeling the structure to hold it up and interfacing it with the stairs seems a difficulty especially if the stair does not go straight up but offsets to come up on a deck edge.

Has anyone done this kind of building in Revit and or does anyone have a concept of families to help in modeling the structure? I am pretty sure the structural people are not on Revit and we will need to model their structural design to provide accurate elevations. The sloping columns will be helpful but do others have some insights. I am having some issues figuring out how to approach this.

Kevin

[nancy.mcclure]

Hi Kevin,

Looking at what type of construction might be going into your Fire Lookout http://is.gd/4Ropb I'd probably plan for Levels at each anticipated platform, allowing you to build a seperate stair (a ship ladder formula, likely) from platform to platform.

The structural framing I'd probably do schematically as sweeps on a blended mass form, then once structural has input, define these as essentially trusses hosted onto angled workplanes defined by my blended mass. That way they can be a face-based .rfa modeled once, and applied.

Looks like a fun project! If you trick it out as one of the rentable 'floating cabins' http://is.gd/4RoC1, SIGN ME UP!

[Kevin Janik]

Thanks for the input! That sounds like a good solution. All I could see was a bunch of framing that kept having to be changed with a great amount of work. Since the structure is pretty symmetrical along each face, maybe I could create 1/2 of each side the way you were noting and then group it and it mirror it for schmatic design and then when the structure is worked out we could build a family of that portion and place it in the group for the sweeps.

Kevin