Mastering Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2013

Chapter 16

Stairs and Railings

Creating stairs and railings in Autodesk^® Revit^® Architecture software can be challenging. Iterating and resolving your design idea is very much like working in a spreadsheet, and designing in a spreadsheet without some graphical feedback can be frustrating. In addition, stairs and railings are often sculptural as well as functional, and there's just so much sculpture you can design with the out-of-the-box functionality.

An entire book can be written about mastering stairs and railings, considering the breadth of functionality in these tools and the unlimited number of design configurations they can be used to create. Instead of walking through a few examples of creating stairs and railings, this chapter will give you foundational knowledge about the rules, parts, and key functionality of these tools so that you can use them in the most effective way possible for your own designs. We will also give you some ideas to tackle tougher design challenges by thinking outside the box.

In this chapter, you'll learn to:

• Understand the key components of stairs and railings
• Design railings with default tools and those outside the box
• Understand the different stair tools and apply them to custom designs
• Implement best practices

How to Approach Stairs and Railings

Designing and iterating complex stairs and railings in any software application can be difficult. You will need to deeply understand the rules and constraints of the application; in effect, learning ...