Stairs, Ramps, and Railings: Creating Numerous Stair Configurations

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Username: Mike Kelly Book: Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 Essentials: AUTODESK OFFICIAL TRAINING GUIDE. No part of any chapter or book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written permission for reprints and excerpts from the publisher of the book or chapter. Redistribution or other use that violates the fair use privilege under U.S. copyright laws (see 17 USC107) or that otherwise violates these Terms of Service is strictly prohibited. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of U.S. Federal and Massachusetts laws.
CHAPTER 5 Stairs, Ramps, and Railings

Revit is capable of creating wonderfully complex and elegant stairs, ramps, and railings. But to get started, you need to understand the basic functionality so that you can confidentially resolve design intent. Then once the design intent is resolved, you'll have plenty of time to go back and modify the stair and revise the entire design quickly and easily! In this chapter, you learn the following skills: Creating numerous stair configurations Designing ramps Building railings for level and sloped conditions Working with parts, parameters, and properties
Creating Numerous Stair Configurations

Stairs contain many, many parameters, but not all of the parameter controls are going to be equally important during the design process. Design is often about the intent of what something is as well as where it is meant to go. Once the intent is resolved, it's necessary to go back and revise the specifics of how something will be carefully assembled. Let's first simplify the default railing that is associated to the stairs. The default railing is very busy from a design standpoint. It contains lots of balusters, which are graphically distracting. It's important that you indicate the handrail and nothing more.
Creating the Generic Railing

Open the default template and expand the Family tree in the Project Browser. As you can see, four railing definitions exist in the project: Guardrail Pipe through Handrail Rectangular. There are also two types of stair families in the default template: the Monolithic stair family and the 7 Max Riser 11 Tread stair family.
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Let's start by creating a railing that is useful from a design standpoint. Too much specificity too soon can cause a lot of confusion, so you'll simplify the geometry. You'll do this by duplicating a railing definition that's close to what you need and then modify it to suit your purposes. Here are the steps to duplicating and creating your own custom handrail that you'll use for designing stairs. For these exercises, you're going to work from the c05_Stairs_Ramps_Railings.rvt file found on the book's companion web page, www.sybex.com/go/revit2012essentials. 1. Right-click on Handrail Pipe and select Duplicate. 2. Right-click on the duplicated handrail and select Rename. Rename the duplicate handrail to Handrail Design. 3. Select the handrail that you've just created and drag it into your Level 1 view. Doing so initiates the Railing command and allows you to draw a portion of the railing that you've selected. 4. Create a 24 [7.3 m] long segment. 5. Select the Finish command and go to your 3D view. As you can see in Figure 5.1, there are balusters and rails below the handrail portion of the railing; you'll simplify this area to create your design railing. FIGURE 5.1 Duplicate and rename the handrail.
To modify the type properties of this railing, select the handrail in your drawing and choose Edit Type from the Type Selector. The Type Properties dialog box opens, which is where you'll modify the properties of the railing. Start by editing the rail structure. Click Edit Rails in the Type Properties dialog box. In the resulting dialog box shown in Figure 5.2, delete Rail 2 through Rail 6. Leave Rail 1; it will serve as the design intent handrail for your stairs. Close the dialog box by clicking OK. FIGURE 5.2 Deleting types
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Next you'll edit the balusters. With the Type Properties dialog box open: 1. Select the Baluster Placement option and click the Edit button; doing so opens the Edit Baluster Placement dialog box, shown in Figure 5.3. 2. In the Main Pattern panel, select Regular Baluster and set its Baluster Family value to None. 3. In the Posts panel, set the Baluster Family value for the Start, Corner, and End posts to None. Then click OK to close the Edit Baluster Placement dialog box and click OK again to close the Type Properties dialog box. The image shows a railing with a handrail only, but for design purposes, this is exactly what you need in order to express design intent. FIGURE 5.3 Edit Baluster Placement settings
Now let's start creating our design stair.
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Creating Your Design Stair

By default, there are two types of stairs in your Revit project. Let's duplicate the 7 Max Riser 11 Tread stair family type in the Project Browser and name the duplicate Stair-Design. This is the stair that you'll use to create numerous configurations.
Straight Run
Let's start by creating a straight run stair. Select the Stairs tool from the Circulation panel of the Home tab on the ribbon. Or, drag the component name into the project view to activate the Stairs tool. 1. From the Level 1 plan view, pick a point to the left and then move your cursor to the right. As you do, you'll notice that Revit is telling you how many treads remain to complete a stair that starts on Level 1 through Level 2 (Figure 5.4). FIGURE 5.4 Sketching the straight run stair
2. Select the Railings Type option in the Tools palette. Specify the Handrail Design type that you created earlier, as shown in Figure 5.5. This will be the default handrail that Revit will use whenever you create this stair until you specify another type. FIGURE 5.5 Specifying the railings type
3. Finish the Sketch mode. The resulting stair is shown in Figure 5.6. FIGURE 5.6 The resulting stair
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Straight Run with Landing

What you just created is the most basic type of stair: a straight run with a pair of railings. However, it's important to understand how to create a variety of stair types, including stairs with landings. Follow these steps to start your first straight run of stairs.
Let's start the sketch this time from the ribbon. Choose the Home tab, and then click the Stairs button in the Circulation panel. Doing so starts your stair in Sketch mode. Begin by drawing a straight run, but stop about halfway through the run. 2. Start the second run of stairs, as shown in Figure 5.7. When you finish the second run of stairs, you'll notice that Revit creates the landing between the two runs automatically. FIGURE 5.7 A second run of stairs and landing
1.
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3. Finish the sketch and the stair will resemble Figure 5.8. FIGURE 5.8 Complete stairs with a middle landing
Multistory Runs
For multistory runs, Revit is able to take a stair that only goes between two levels and repeat it continuously. But this will only work if all of the level-to-level heights are identical. Let's turn one of the stairs that we've created into a multistory stair. It's easy! 1. First, you need to create some additional levels. As shown in Figure 5.9, open the South elevation and click the Level tool on the Datum panel of the Home tab. Click on the elevation and drag the mouse from left to right to place the level, taking care that the heights are equally spaced. As discussed earlier, you can change the level heights by clicking the blue elevation text. For this example, we repeated the levels at 10-0 [3 m] incrementsup to 40-0 [15m)]. Figure 5.9 shows several stair types, including the ones you've created. FIGURE 5.9 Adding additional levels to the model
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2. Select any of the stairs you've created. Highlight one of the stair runs and look at its properties in the Properties palette. You'll see there's an option to designate the Multistory Top Level. Set it to Level 5, as shown in Figure 5.10. FIGURE 5.10 Changing the properties for a multistory stair
3. Once you complete the multistory stair, the stair will quickly propagate across all levels (Figure 5.11). If you edit the stair or railings associated to the multistory stair, the entire multistory configuration changes as well. FIGURE 5.11 The completed multistory stair
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Setting the Host Function for Railings

By now you've noticed railings have special relationships to stairs. By default Revit creates railings at the same location as the boundary sketch of the stair. You can then select the railing and modify its sketch to suit a particular condition. It's important to understand that railings are hosted by stairs, and this relationship allows railings to follow the path of the stairs that host them. So let's create another stair that's a bit wider than the stairs you've created thus far. Also, let's remember to tell the railing that it is hosted by the stairs. 1. Create the stair as shown in Figure 5.12. Notice the landing as well as the extra width that will easily allow traffic in both directions. Finish the sketch by clicking the green check on the Modify tab of the ribbon. FIGURE 5.12 Stair sketch for hosting the center railing
2. Add two separate railing sketches: one for the lower run and another for the upper run. And while you're at it, you'll also include the handrail extensions.
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3. Drag the Handrail Design railing type into the project view. Revit will initiate the Railing tool for you and select the railing. Sketch the lower railing as shown in Figure 5.13. Add the extensions shown as separate sketch lines. FIGURE 5.13 Lower railing sketch
4.
Before you complete the sketch, be sure to set the stair as the host for the railing. Click the Pick New Host icon on the Tools palette; then select the stair. It will highlight when you hover over the stair. 5. Finish the stair and the view will resemble the left side of Figure 5.14. Now create the second sketch for the upper railing. Don't forget to extend the railing beyond the lower treads and add the extension. The results will resemble the image on the right of Figure 5.14. Don't forget to set the host each time you create a new railing! FIGURE 5.14 Handrail extensions
One final note: not only is hosting important for railings and stairs, but it's also something that you'll deal with when creating ramps as well as sloped floors.
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Stairs, Ramps, and Railings: Creating Numerous Stair Configurations

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Page 1 of 9

CHAPTER 5 Stairs, Ramps, and Railings

Creating Numerous Stair Configurations

Creating the Generic Railing

Now let's start creating our design stair.

Creating Your Design Stair

Straight Run with Landing

Setting the Host Function for Railings

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