Create a Conceptual Site Plan (7:11 min)

00:01

Now that we have our Base Plans, we can get to work in our Conceptual Site Plans.

00:05

In this lesson, we're gonna use Revit 2020 and we'll link in our Base Plans, then use the Massing tools in Revit to create the Site Plan.

00:14

So, here I am in Revit 2020.

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And the first thing I want to do for my Conceptual Site Plan is I want to go to the Insert ribbon and I want to link in my Base Plan.

00:24

So, I choose the Link CAD option. And here is my Base Plan.

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I'm gonna choose the Positioning to be Auto Origin to Origin, and I just click "Open" to insert the link.

00:35

I'm gonna zoom out for a second. You can see here is all of my Base Plan information.

00:40

So, we have our driveways. We have our boundaries.

00:42

We have our buildings, so everything I need to get started.

00:46

I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. Now, one thing to note, our building site is right here.

00:51

So, it's oriented to True North. Not necessarily to any kind of Project North.

00:56

So, that may be something you want to set up in your Conceptual Site Plan,

00:60

just so that the orientation can switch either to show Project North or True North.

01:05

So, I'm gonna change over to my Site Plan View.

01:09

I'm going to zoom in. And I have my Survey Point and my Project Base Point right down here.

01:14

I'm going to do a quick study. I'm gonna go to the Annotate ribbon and I'm gonna draw a detail line.

01:21

I'm just gonna calculate the angle between my True North and Project North.

01:25

So, I draw a straight line. And then I'm gonna use an angular dimension to measure the dimension between those two lines.

01:33

It tells me it's 22.69 degrees. So, I can delete those two elements.

01:39

I just needed to know that number. So, I'm gonna select my Base Plan, and I'm gonna unpin it.

01:46

And now I'm gonna rotate it 22.69 degrees. So, I click on "Rotate" and I'm going to go with a Vertical.

01:56

There we go, and I'm just gonna choose to rotate it 22.69.

02:01

So, I'm rotating the actual site plan from True North to a Project North variable and then our value and I'm gonna pin it again.

02:09

So, now again, I want to keep that True North orientation.

02:13

So, I'm gonna select our Project Base Point and I'm gonna unclip it from the Survey Point.

02:19

I'm gonna move it over to a location that's more convenient to our actual project site.

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Now, with it still selected, I'm gonna choose this angle to True North option and I'm gonna set that equal to negative 22.69.

02:34

If I enter that value, so that is the angle from Project North to True North.

02:39

So, inside my view, my current view, I can set my -- change my orientation from Project North to True North.

02:46

And that's going to rotate the view so that we're looking again, at our True North orientation, and we may want that for our Site Plan.

02:55

But then, if I click on a floor plan, I can see it with the Project North orientation.

03:00

So, it's handy to be able to have both of those, particularly at the early stages of design,

03:05

because you may not know or you may need to represent it in different orientations,

03:09

particularly too if you're looking at site information and you want to see all the pieces come together.

03:15

So, now I have this file set up. I can start to use the Massing tools to layout some conceptual building masses,

03:23

so I can better understand maybe where that project or the building wants to be located on the site.

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So, I'm gonna go to Massing Insight, and I'm going to create an in-place mass.

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Now, I'm gonna get this message telling me that the Show Mass mode is enabled, just hit Close, and I'm just gonna call this mass Mass 1.

03:43

So, I'm going to do a very simple mass. So, I'm gonna click rectangle, and I'm going to draw a rectangle right here.

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And then I'm gonna choose the Create Form option, and I'm gonna create a solid form.

03:57

And now I can hit the Finish Mass button, and I've created my mass.

04:02

So, I'm gonna go to a 3D View so we can look at it a little better, and I can see my mass right here.

04:08

So it comes in with a default height.

04:10

It's probably a lot higher than I want. So, I'm gonna just use these controls to make it smaller.

04:16

I can start to push and pull this mass however I need to and I can see my gross surface area, my gross volume as I make those changes.

04:25

Now, I could also go through and I could make masses all for my context buildings as well,

04:31

if I wanted to start looking at the building itself relative to the context and in particular, building heights.

04:37

I'm just gonna play with this a little bit.

04:40

I'll make it a little bit higher and I can move this mass around on the site.

04:45

I can rotate it if there are particular sight lines that look good and I can just push and pull it very easily and very quickly.

04:54

Now I'm gonna turn on our Shadows and I'm gonna change my Visualization to use a shaded view,

05:02

and you can see with the mass itself, it's still showing as a transparent object.

05:08

So, I'm gonna go back to our Massing Insight and I'm going to use the Wall tool, so Model by Face, Wall.

05:16

So I can click the sides of my mass and I can start adding walls to them.

05:22

And now I'm starting to see some shadows there. I could do the same thing.

05:27

We go back to Massing Insight, and I can put a roof on the building.

05:30

So, I'm gonna select the Roof Surface, I choose Create Roof, and then it adds a roof right on top.

05:38

Now, if I wanted to get more accurate in terms of my Solar Analysis, I could go to Manage, and I'm gonna choose the Location option.

05:50

And I can set my location to be exactly where the site is located.

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So, in this case, it's Middletown, Connecticut. I'm gonna choose that, and I can click "OK".

06:03

And now I can also turn on my Sun Path tool.

06:07

So, I'm gonna turn that on, and I'm gonna use the specified project location.

06:13

And now I can zoom out a bit and start adjusting the Sun angles,

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so I can look at specific Sun angles at certain times a day or times of year, particularly to that building orientation and that site.

06:27

So I can play around with this and again, I have the context information in here,

06:31

so I can make some much more informed decisions on where I should best locate that building.

06:37

Okay, now it's your turn. I want you to go ahead and create a site plan for the second site.

06:44

And to do this, first, open up Revit 2020 and start a new file.

06:48

Then Link in the site DWG file.

06:51

Set your Project North for the building site and then use Mass objects to position building shapes.

06:57

Determine the best location for the building based on the adjacent site data,

07:01

then add walls, floors and roof to the mass and then do some sun studies as well.