Revit tutorial 2020 – Stair modelling - How to get a smooth join between the floor & the waist slab?

Over the years we have been struggling to construct a cast in place concrete stair in Autodesk Revit. Our aim is to get a smooth join between the floor & the waist slab. We have tried it from Revit 2006 to 2020.1. We tried everything, stair by run method, stair by sketch, stair by the in-place family method. Changed the property of the stair from property palette box, but of no use. We didn’t get a constructible solution.

After analyzing the problem deeply, We noticed that the user has to construct the floor & the stair using two different tools. And there isn’t any tool in Autodesk Revit which will join these together to make a homogeneous object. Though it is available for the precast stair.

Other enhancement in stair tool we wanted

Dog leg stair

In this part of the world, we often come across designing & constructing dog-leg stairs. Considering very high property rates, we often confront with stair designing in a compact area. We wanted a more flexible designing tool.

Considering all the above concerns, we decide to design the stair tool.

Using InstaCrete the user can construct 5 types of stairs.

·      Single flight stair

·      Single flight stair with landing

·      Dog leg stair

·      “U” shaped stair

·      “L” shaped stair

Features –

1.  Make your calculations, input the values in the dialogue box, hit okay. Your stair is ready in the drawing.

2.  The riser height is automatically calculated. You need to calculate only the tread length.

3.  A smooth join between the waist slab & the floor is possible for any thickness.

4.  The user can attach data like phase & concrete mix in the same dialogue box.

With the main aim of “getting a smooth join,” we embark on the journey of developing the stair tool. We developed it in 4 months.

After studying all the options, we found the only way out, that is to cut the floor at the place where the stair joins it. And then to fill that floor opening by the stair extension. We decided the size of the opening as 900 mm x stair width. (We do not say that this the perfect solution to the problem.)

We used the structural foundation family to create the 3D model of the stair. We could not use the stair family available in, “model in-place” due to Revit API limitations.

The user can use the stair manager to edit the stairs.

InstaCrete is available from the site www.rcccad.com as well as from https://apps.autodesk.com/en