In this session, we are going to model the foundation. We have set up the grid lines, levels, site and excavation in the project model. Here, we will be building up a underground structure from the excavated base, and go all the way up to the first floor. Now, please follow my steps using Revit to set up the structural components of the foundation. From the design drawings in CAD, we know raft foundation is used in this case. Let’s start from the columns for the foundation. Go to the bottom left corner of your screen, open the Project Browser, and find the view of B1 in the floor plan. In the drawing area, you should be seeing the imported structural plan; if you haven’t imported the structural plan, please follow the steps in the previous session and import it accordingly. Now, click the “Column” drawing tool in the “Structure” tab. Then, go to “Properties” palette and select “Concrete Column - Rectangular 40 x 40 cm.” In the drop-down menu of the “Options Bar,” select the column of “Depth” and “Unconnected”, input “200 cm”. Accordinating to the underlay of B1 floor, move your cursor to the area where column C0 is going to be located, and click once to set up the column component. After that, go to the “Modify/Place Structural Column” tab, choose the “Align” tool and click once on the left edge of column C0, then, go to the column component we have just set up, and click again at its left edge. Now the column component is aligned in the X axis with column C0 on the underlay. Repeat the above steps to align the Y axis of column C0. Repeat the steps above to set up the remaining column components of the B1 floor. Select the corresponding sizes for the columns and put them on the locations according to the underlay of the B1 floor. In order to avoid any missing items, I suggest that you start from left to right, and from top to bottom. If the cross-section of the column is rectangular, you may use the Spacebar on your keyboard to rotate it 90 degrees first, if needed, then set it up at where it should be. Now we have set up the columns for the raft foundation. It’s time for the beams. Click the “Beam” drawing tool in the “Structure” tab. Select “Concrete Beam - Rectangular 40 x 205 cm”. In the “Options Bar,” find the drop-down menu of “Placement Plane”, select “B1”, then go to the “Properties” palette on the left side, find the column of “Y Justification” and select “Center”. Now go to the drawing area, click on the beam from end to end to set up the beam component. If the location of the beam you just set up is not exactly accurate, you can use the “Align” tool to align it with the beams on the underlay. Now, repeat the above steps to set up the rest of the beam components, also from left to right, and from top to bottom. As soon as you are done with it, we can start to set up the raft foundation floor. Go to the “Structure” tab and find the drop-down menu of “Floor”, select the tool “Floor:Structural.” Then, go to the type selector in the “Properties” palette. Select “50 cm”, set the “Height Offset from Level” to “-155 cm”. Now, go to the drawing area, set up the “raft foundation floor” according to the closed area formed by the beams and raft foundation columns. Draw each floor separately, in the sequence of left to right and top to bottom. Here we only demonstrate how to set up the top three floors, you can repeat the same steps to get the rest done. Next, we need to set up the backfills. Go to the “Architectural” tab and find the drop-down menu of the “floor”, select the tool “Floor:Architectural”. Then, go to the “Properties palette” on the left, select the floor type as “Backfill” from the drop-down menu. Set the “Height Offset from Level” to “-15” cm. Now, we can start to draw the backfills. The steps are the same as we set up the floor components. You can draw the backfills one by one in places they are needed. As soon as the drawing of the raft foundation floors and backfills are all set, we can now set up the floors for B1. The procedures are quite similar to the ones for the raft foundation floor. First, go the the “Structure” tab and select the tool “floor:structure.” Then, go to the “Properties Palette,” select “RC Floor (15).” Select the “Height Offset from Level” to 0. Now we can start to draw the B1 floors. Go to the drawing area. Set up the B1 floor according to the closed area formed by the beams and the raft foundation columns. Draw each floor separately in the sequence of left to right and top to bottom. As soon as you are done with the modeling, switch to 3D view to check the outcome. Go to the “Properties” palette, select the tool “Section Box” to adjust its size. You can now see the complete raft foundation.
