TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter explores all facets of vertical circulation in a building. You'll start with stairs because they are the most common way of moving vertically between levels. As you delve into the complexities of stair objects, you'll learn how to make straight, spiral, multi-landing, and U-shaped flights using a stair training structure that has been designed to facilitate your experiments. You'll also learn how to tweak stair objects to fit into almost any existing situation, and create new stairs that automatically adhere to building code requirements.
You'll style stairs to represent a wide variety of real world types, including flights made from wood, concrete, and steel as well as gradually sloping concrete ramps. You'll attach railings to the stairs you have made and learn to create freestanding railings. In addition, you'll design a wide array of railing styles by locating their rails, posts, and balusters and using profiles and custom blocks where appropriate.
At the end of the chapter, you'll open a sample project and generate a stair tower a stack of interconnected stairs spanning multiple levels typically found in modern commercial buildings. Stair towers can include stairs, railings, and slabs. This chapter's topics include:
Creating Stairs
Editing Stairs
Working with Stair and Ramp Styles
Adding Railings
Generating a Stair Tower
In Architectural Desktop, ramps (inclined planes) are not defined as architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) objects in their own right. Instead, a ramp is considered to be a special case of the general-purpose stair object. Later, in "Working with...
