Phase Filter Overrides

I’m working on an Addition & Renovation job (yet again) and have been using phase filters extensively. Here are some of the things I would like to have when working on these types of projects:

• Sometimes I need to change the representation of a phase filter override by view and not project-wide. For example in a presentation sheet, I might want to “color code” differently than for Construction Documents. Currently I have to change my phase filters, print to PDF and then change them back so my Construction Document views are the way I want them.
• I use a colored solid fill to easily distinguish new from existing work. However when printing, I run into a problem as those solid colors don’t result in a nice, solid black on paper. Also when printing PDFs, you get colored fills instead and there are cases I don’t want that. So I have to change my phase filter overrides before printing. This shouldn’t be required. I would like to be able to not only print colored lines in black, but also colored fills in black.

Here’s what the view looks like on screen (this is only a small part of the job, so don’t think I’m doing restroom renovations for a living!). When printed to PDF with the Colors option set to Black Lines, purple cut & projected lines turn to black like I want, but the solid fill is still purple. This is the reason I think the above would be useful, especially because on certain printers, color fills turn into a nasty & inconsistent gray.

I have might have more issues with Phase Filters, but that’s it for now. Comments and opinions welcome!

Phase Filter Overrides

My Second Revit Project - Part 1

So today I decided to start a series of posts about the second Revit project that I was involved in from Design all the way into Construction, which is the phase we’re currently in. The steel is almost all erected and stud framing and roof carpentry (wood blocking) is in progress. That is, when it’s not raining!

This is a challenging project and I can’t wait to see the end result. But first some history: the original school building was designed by renowned firm CRS in the 1950s. The almost sixty year old campus has seen numerous additions and renovations over the years and it was time to give the “old lady” a nice, well deserved face lift. The main issues that we were asked to address were security, campus expansion and renovation and the installation of a new heating and cooling system to service the new addition and most of the existing buildings. The original campus was typical regional architecture: wide overhangs with very low roofs and narrow, “finger” plan buildings with open breezeways.

Back in those days, there was no air conditioning, and natural ventilation was the only means of cooling. Well, this is the Houston area we’re talking about. I don’t honestly know how they lived without A/C!

Adding insulation and using high performance, high impact glazing was key and the final solution had to “fit”. The goal was to make this “new” facility look like it was all built at the same time, and believe me….it was and still is a huge challenge! We wanted to keep as much of the original buildings and structures as possible for budgetary reasons and also to respect the original CRS buildings. You can see the existing structure in red in the pictures below with new structure nestled into it:

The only available space for expansion was the area between the existing “finger” buildings. We had to give up the “courtyards” to bridge this area with a new building, which is higher so that it could accommodate clerestory windows to bring in natural light, to house mechanical mezzanines and to tie in with the slope of the existing roofs. We re-used many of the existing sloping fascia details to tie the new with the old.

This was the first project where I had to learn all there is to know about Phasing in Revit. We pushed the boundaries and learned a lot. We started by modeling the existing building and structures that we were going to tie into. This helped us visualize those complex situations where new structure was to be nestled into the existing. It also helped us see what our massing options were based on seeing exactly which parts of the existing structures we could demolish. And all this while designing the new addition and taking construction decisions at the same time.

The hardest challenge in Revit was to figure out how to demolish parts of elements, such as roofs, beams and walls. I will discuss some of these techniques in future posts and will continue to write about the progress of this and other projects.

My Second Revit Project - Part 1