From the course: Revit 2021: Essential Training for Architecture (Imperial and Metric)

Adding stairs - Revit Tutorial

From the course: Revit 2021: Essential Training for Architecture (Imperial and Metric)

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Adding stairs

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- Let's take a look at the stair tool and add some stairs to our building. I want to actually work in a split screen for this one. I'm going to work simultaneously in a floor plan and a 3D view. So, I've already got the floor plan open. I'll come over here to the project browser, double click the 3D view that I've already created in the project. And notice that it's a cutaway axonometric of the lobby area. Once I've done that, I'll go to the view tab and use the tile views button, or you can type WT, the keyboard shortcut. And then using the wheel on your mouse you can zoom and pan to adjust both views and focus in on the lobby. I want you to make sure that the Level One Floor Plan is the Active view before we continue. Alright so now we're going to go to the Architecture tab and click the Stair tool. That'll put us in a sketch mode. So we're going to accept many of the defaults here, but let me just walk you through a few of them. The default Draw mode is Run and Straight Run, we're going to accept that but notice there are some other choices like Curved and so on. The Location line. There are several choices. I encourage you to experiment with these a little bit later, but for now I'll just accept the default of Run Center. No need to off set it. The actual run width is a value that you can change but I'm going to wait until I can show you what controls that setting, so let's leave that for now. And then Automatic Landing, I want to leave that checked on and that will be useful for us in a few moments. Now if you come over here to the Properties palate, you'll have several choices here on the Type selector. There are actually three built in System families and than each of those has one or more Types. Let's make sure that we've got Steal Pan Stair chosen which is just a typical commercial stair case. And we'll stick with that, but I want to click the Edit Type button to show you what the settings, or at least some of the settings, in this stair are. So the most important ones are the Calculation Rules. And notice that there is a Maximum Riser Height and that is seven inches in Imperial, and that's going to be 175 millimeters in metric. There's a Minimum Tread Depth of 11 inches in Imperial or 275 in metric. And a Minimum Run Width of three feet or 1,000 millimeters in metric. Don't change any of those number. So let's click cancel there. I just want you to make a mental note of those and let's now look at the rest of the properties here and see how those numbers affect those. So like other vertical elements in Revit, there's a Base Level and a Top Level. So we're going from level one to level two. Right here, the Desired Stair Height, Revit does the math and calculates what that height is. Once it has that it divides it by the Maximum Riser Height that we just saw in the Edit Type window and comes up with the Actual Riser Height right here and it's going to get as close to that maximum value as it can without going over. And that will determine how many risers we have. So that's where this 18 is coming from. Alright, you can change this number if you want to. If you put in a number smaller than 18, like let's try 16, and then you try and apply, that will tell you that the Actual Riser Height is greater than the maximum allowed in the Type and it will therefor not be happy with that. So I'll click cancel. On the other hand, if we put in a larger number here it will happily comply. Now I think 18 for this example is perfectly fine so I'm going to leave it set to that but I just wanted you to see how that number interacts. Now the Actual Tread Depth will be similar. If you put in a smaller value it will complain, you put in a larger value it will be perfectly fine. Let's put a slightly larger value. I'm going to do 12 inches in Imperial or 300 millimeters in metric. And then likewise with the Actual Run Width, which is actually over here instead of the Properties palate. So remember there was a Minimum Run Width in the Type Properties, so I'm going to increase this. And as long as you make it larger it won't generate a warning. So I'm going to do four foot imperial or 1200 millimeters if you're working in metric. So now that we've made those really brief changes there, we're ready to come into the floor plan and start sketching the stair. So click a point maybe right about here for your first start point and then start moving your mouse to the right. Notice that little gray message down the bottom of the stair. When it says "9 risers created, 9 remaining", I want you to click to place your first run. That run will appear in the floor plan and simultaneously in 3D. So now, move straight down here. Give yourself some room because you have to take into account the Run Width, thickness here. Click a new point and start moving back in the opposite direction. When it says "9 risers created 0 remaining" you can click and create the second run. So with four clicks we've created the essential geometry of the stair. Notice that the landing came in automatically. That's because we had that box checked that said automatic landing. Now the only thing I do want to do here is adjust the distance between these two runs. So right now their spacing is kind of random because I just eyeballed my point. Well you could use your move command but I don't really know how far to move so what I want to do instead is add a dimension. So I can click the Dimension tool or type DI, the shortcut. I'll highlight the inside face of the first run and you want to make sure that the tool tip says Runs, if it doesn't press the tab key. Than I'll highlight the inside face of the second run and again use tab if you need to and I'll place the dimension off to the side. I'll click the modified tool to cancel. Select the second run that I drew. That will activate the dimension and then I can click right on the number and type in the value that I want. And I'm going to use eight inches if I'm working in imperial or 200 millimeters if you're working in metric. That will move those runs closer together and complete the layout of the stair. Now before we finish there's one last thing I want to show you Over here on the far right is a Railing button. Let's click that and here you'll see a list of available railings. Now you can just accept the default which is what it chose initially or you can chose something else. I'm going to chose Guardrail Pipe and then I want to position that relative to the stringers instead of the treads. I'll click okay and then I'll click the Finish Edit Mode and that will give me a stair complete with a railing on each side. So it's a really nice little tool there that just requires a few clicks to give yourself a complete stair. I'm going to click over here in the 3D view, open up the default 3D view now so I can see the entire building. Pan and zoom as necessary in the floor plan. And I'd like you to practice a little bit more outside the building, out in the front there and create a few different stair shapes. So just return to the Stair tool, modify any of the settings if you wish but try making a Straight stair. In that case you just simply use all of the treads in a single run. When you click finish, you'll have a Straight Stair complete with railings. If you want to create a multi-landing stair it's as simple as creating a small Run, giving yourself some room, creating another run that will give you a landing create another run you'll get another landing. Keep going until you've used up all the stairs. And each time you create a Run it will fill it in with a landing and when you finish you'll have this more complex shape multi-landing stair. So I encourage you to explore a little bit further with the stair tools before we move on to stair editing techniques.

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