Saturday, June 23, 2007

Under Their Nose - Stairs

This stair is in the front lobby of a building that Revit staff see quite often.



I immediately thought that it would be quite a task to make this stair with Revit's stair and railing tools. Ironic that such a stair is "under their nose" and certainly should serve as inspiration for any future improvements that are made.

On the same subject, while working in Houston in a Philip Johnson/John Burgee building originally called the Transco Tower and now called William's Tower I encountered a stair in an emergency exit stair shaft that has what I think is a very nice railing detail.

This is the stair/railing from one angle



This is another angle
I imagine you could make separate railings that use custom start and end balusters to replicate the transition from run to run but it would take a bit of work. The connection of each stringer to a flat plate just isn't possible with the current tools. I like the fact that you can walk down the stairs and leave your hand on the railing without ever coming into contact with a support, very clean.

If you are curious here is a picture I took of the tower itself. I took it from next to a parking garage nearby.




This is a view from the 62nd floor meeting room we used for training, looking East toward downtown Houston.
The top row of glazing in the immediate view to the right is the parapet of the floor/roof below us. On the roof hidden from view are the anchors and outriggers for the window cleaning rigging equipment. Sorry, no picture...didn't think of it till now, too late!

If you have a stair or observe one that Revit ought to let you build at or all, or at least more easily, consider taking a snapshot of it and/or providing the design drawings you prepared to Revit support so they can properly define the scope of any future improvements to the stair/ramp/railing tools.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just for information purposes, the stair railing that is pictured is really not an apropriate code compliant railing. I do agree that it looks good. You would never be able to buld that with the current codes. Its almost pointless to be able to create something that wouldnt be built.

Steve said...

Interesting, are you speaking of code in Houston, Texas where the building is or that the code has changed significantly since 1983 when the building was completed?

Regardless, there are lots of railings that do meet code that Revit doesn't permit us to create easily or elegantly yet.

Therefore, we should be proactive to submit the kinds of things we do need to make. That was the point I was trying, poorly, to make.

Steve said...

I just saw another stair with very nearly the same railing configuration that was installed recently in Orange, CA. I didn't get a chance to take a picture this time but clearly someone is taking liberties with code interpretation? 8-)