Introduction

The objective for project 1 is to create a Building Information Model (BIM) and Parametric Design for a selected building of our choice. We are to choose a building that will encompass all of the parametric modeling skills that we have acquired thus far. The parametric modeling of the building was first started by collecting as much information, such as drawings, plans, elevations, etc. on the building as was possible. Once the information was gathered, a parametric, conceptual mass of the building was created. This mass was parametrically controlled so that the geometry of the building could be easily altered. Next, a parametrically controlled envelop family was created and loaded into the building conceptual mass family. Once the parametric mass model was created, a detailed BIM model of the building was created that included: walls, floors, ceilings, windows, and floor plans with accompanying furniture. Finally, realistic renderings of the interior and exterior of the building were created along with various screenshots that displayed how the building model could be parametrically altered.

Proposed Building Model

The building I chose to model for the project was the Taipei 101 Tower located in Taiwan. The Taipei 101 Tower can be seen in Figures 1 and 2 below. Construction of Taipei 101 began in 1999 and was completed in 2004. It is currently the world’s fourth tallest building in the following categories: structurally, roof height, highest occupied floor. The spire reaches a height of 1,667 feet while the roof and the top floor reach heights of 1,470 feet and 1,457 feet, respectively. The tower also includes five basement floors which extend 103 feet below ground level.

Figure 1: Taipei 101 at Dusk (Taipei Financial Center Corp. 2009)

Figure 2: Exterior Facade (Sekavic 2005)

Taipei 101 has multiple uses, but is mainly an office building. It houses retail facilities on floors 1 – 4, a fitness center on floors 5 and 6, offices on floors 7 – 84, restaurants on floors 86 – 88, observation decks on floors 89, 91, and 101, and communication facilities on floors 92 – 100. Beneath the building is a station for the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) awaiting the construction of the Hsinyi line. The tower also includes the two fastest elevators in the world installed by Toshiba and has a 900 ton tuned mass damper on the 87th floor to counteract earthquakes and typhoons. (Skyscraper Source Media Inc. 2012) The design and architecture of the building is heavily based on the Chinese culture. The building protrudes from the ground like a bamboo shoot and the eight inverted trapezoidal sections that make up the majority of the tower use the Chinese pagoda as their form. The eight trapezoidal sections also represent the lucky number eight which means blooming or success. Most aspects of the design, layout and planning of the tower were consulted on by a Feng Shui master. (Sekavic 2005) The façade of the tower is composed of unitized glass wall and steel.

Parametric Design Intent

As can be seen from the schematic representation of Taipei 101 in Figure 3 below, the tower is essentially constructed by stacking various “blocks” on top of each other. The two main components of the tower are the base trapezoidal section and the eight inverted trapezoidal sections above the base. The base component is wider at the base than at the top, while the upper eight components are wider at the top than at the base creating the sloping envelope as seen in the figure below. The eight sections above the base also contain notches at each of the corners along the height of the inverted trapezoidal section. In order to parametrically control these components, they were created as individual conceptual masses with their various widths and heights as the driving parameters.  The notches in the eight upper sections are dependent on the overall outer and inner widths at the top and bottom of these sections and were also set as parameters. This will be described further in the following section. Once these conceptual masses were created they were loaded into a new total building family and essentially stacked on top of each other.

Figure 3: Schematic View (Sekavic 2005)

The components above the eight inverted trapezoidal sections were all created in the same manner using similar driving parameters since they all use the same basic trapezoidal form. For the components that are circular in form, they were created using either a revolve or sweep with driving parameters defined as radii and height. These were then uploaded into the full building family and placed in their appropriate places. The exterior façade of the building is composed of a rectangular curtain wall system which was created as a curtain wall by pattern mass family. The height and width of each window frame is controlled by the divide surface function in Revit, while the width and thickness of the frames are parametrically driven along with the materials for the frame and window pane. A separate curtain wall family that used the same parameters as the one previously explained was also created in order to easily change the color of the windows on the top edge of the tower base component and the upper eight inverted trapezoidal components. This is also described in further detail in the following section.

Parametric Modeling

Building Mass Model

The parametric mass model for Taipei 101 is composed of 22 conceptual masses stacked and aligned on top of one another. Of the 22 conceptual masses, there are 12 conceptual mass families with different shapes and dimensions that were used to create the full tower. Because most of these were created in the same manner, only a few of the main parametric building families are described in detail for clarity. The building families that make up the full tower family that are described can be seen in Figures 4 through 7 below and include: tower base component (component 1), the inverted and notched trapezoidal components that make up a majority of the tower’s height (component 2), the smaller main tower on top of the eight inverted trapezoidal sections (component 3), and the three trapezoidal sections on top of the smaller main top tower (component 4).

Figure 4: Component 1 Conceptual Mass

Figure 5: Component 2 Conceptual Mass

Figure 6: Component 3 Conceptual Mass

Figure 7: Component 4 Conceptual Mass

Parametric Modeling of Component 1

To create component 1 of the tower, the base of Taipei 101, the length and width of the base and the length and width of the top were defined as separate type parameters. The height was also defined as a type parameter. Once the length, width and height parameters were set to their respected values, a solid extrusion of this component was created. The driving parameters for this component are shown in Figure 8 below.

Figure 8: Component 1 Parameters

Parametric Modeling of Component 2

In order to create the parametric mass for component 2, the top and bottom faces were drawn using model lines to incorporate the notches in the corner edges. The top face of this component can be seen in Figure 9 below.

Figure 9: Top Face of Component 2

Once the top and bottom faces were drawn, the overall length and width of each face were defined as separate type parameters for both the bottom and top face. As can be seen from Figure 9 above, each side of the faces have four notches that make a diagonal cut in each of the four corners. In order to keep these notch lengths equal when the length and width of this component is changed, a parametric formula was defined for the notch width. The parametric formula for the notch width can be seen in Figure 10 below. With the notch width parametrically defined, the dimensions of the component can be changed while the notch lengths always remain equal to each other. Once all of these parameters were defined a solid extrusion between the top and bottom faces was created to create the form of component 2.

Figure 10: Component 2 Parameters

Parametric Modeling of Components 3 and 4

The parametric models of components 3 and 4 were created in the same manner as the parametric model for component 1. The base length and width, and the top length and width of each component were set as type parameters. The height of each component was also set as a type parameter. After these parameters were defined, again, a solid extrusion was used to create components 3 and 4. Figures 11 and 12 below show the parameters defining component 3 and 4.

Figure 11: Component 3 Parameters

Figure 12: Component 4 Parameters

As was previously mentioned, the remaining conceptual mass families were created in a similar manner to the ones just described. After all of the individual building components were created, they were all loaded into one single building family and stacked on top of each other. The families in which multiple components made up the full building were replicated the required number of times and placed in their respected positions. The total building conceptual mass family is shown in Figure 13 below.

Figure 13: Full Building Conceptual Mass Family

Façade Modeling

The façade of Taipei 101 is composed of a rectangular curtain wall system made up of steel frames and glass window panes. The parametric mass model of the curtain wall was created by using a curtain wall by pattern. The exterior window frame was created by using a rectangle with the sweep function to make the form of the frame around the entire rectangular window frame. The thickness and width of the frame element were assigned as parameters so that the frame and overall curtain wall appearance can be easily changed. The color and transparency of the glass along with the frame material was also assigned material parameters so that their colors can be changed quickly.  Figure 14 below displays the parametric conceptual curtain wall mass.

Figure 14: Parametric Curtain Wall Conceptual Mass

Once the conceptual mass of the curtain wall system was completed, the divide surface tool was used in the main building family so that the curtain wall system could be applied to the façade of the building. The number of rows and columns for the curtain wall grid was manually adjusted to make the building look as close as possible to the real one. The gold panels at the top of each component are a separate curtain wall conceptual mass that was created the same way as the main curtain wall system. This was done so that these panels could be assigned different materials and colors without changing the overall curtain wall pattern. Figure 15 displays what the curtain wall system looks like in the building mass family.

Figure 15: Curtain Wall System

Screen Shots of Parametric Families

Screen Shot 1 This screen shot was taken after the width and height parameters of the component of the tower were changed. The bottom width was made smaller, while the top width and height were made larger.

Screen Shot 2 This screen shot was taken after the width and height parameters of the mass family used to create the eight inverted trapezoidal sections were changed. The height and top width of this component were both drastically increased.

Screen Shot 3 This screen shot was obtained by changing the parameters of the components that make up the top spire portion of the tower. These were also height and width parameters. The components whose parameters were changed are the ones that look out of proportion to the rest of the building.

Screen Shot 4 This last screen shot was taken after the width and thickness parameters of the curtain wall system frame were changed. The frame width was dramatically increased. The color and material of the glass panes and the frame can also be changed, but were not for this screen shot.

Interior Modeling

Because the building very large and contains so many floor levels, a typical office floor plan was created. All of the exterior rooms are offices and conference rooms while most of the rest of the usable space is composed of work stations. The interior core of the building contains restrooms, elevators and stairs. These spaces are labeled, but no components were added due to time constraints. The typical office floor plan layout is shown in Figure 16 below.

Figure 16: Typical Office Floor Plan

Renderings

The figures below show the exterior and interior floor that was modeled of Taipei 101 in realistic renderings during the day.

Figure 17: Total Tower Exterior Rendering

Figure 18: Tower Top Exterior Rendering

Figure 2: Typical Office Floor Interior Rendering

Revit Modeling Issues/Comments

The main issue encountered when developing this model was creating a single curtain wall conceptual mass that would allow me to change the color and material of individual panels. I experienced this problem when I tried to change the color and material of the panels at the top of each building mass. I resolved this issue by creating a new curtain wall conceptual mass with different materials and colors. I then selected the individual panels that I wanted to change and changed the curtain panel type to the one I wanted. Although this is probably not the most sophisticated way to resolve the problem, the results were satisfactory and I believe that parametrically changing these panels is beyond the scope of this project. However, after methods for Revit programming is learned in the future, this problem will probably be able to be solved much more easily and quicker. I also had a few constraint issues when flexing the parameters of my building family, but they were easily resolved by locking and unlocking some of the alignments I created. 

Works Cited

Taipei Financial Center Corp. (2009). “Taipei 101,” <http://www.taipei-101.com.tw/en/Tower/index_tower.asp> (Feb. 23, 2012).

Sekavic, Daniel. (2005). “Taipei 101-Taipei Financial Center,” <http://www.daapspace.daap.uc.edu/~larsongr/Larsonline/SkyCaseStu_files/Taipei101.pdf> (Feb. 23, 2012).