Modelling Exposed concrete

[ninajan897]

I was wondering if you could tell me how to model exposed concrete floor slabs when multiple zones lie on top of each other. 

For example a four zones have been created for a four story building. All wall types are the same; the ground floor floor type is slab on ground and the other floor types are concrete suspended. Should the ceilings of each zone be a void? or should they be modelled instead as a floor and also named 'concrete suspended' or should the ceiling be just a new material called air?

[Pennetier1]

Hi Ninajan897,

Your example is clear - this is where the little-understood Alternate Material comes in...

Every object in your model is assigned two materials: one PRIMARY, and another one ALTERNATE.

Whenever a surface is not adjacent to another surface, Ecotect uses the PRIMARY material for its calculations.

Whenever a surface is adjacent (as determined by the Inter-Zonal Adjacencies calculation) to another surface, the software will be using the ALTERNATE material.

Why is that? Well, if a single zone has brick walls all around with no adjacencies, then the bricks walls are brick walls.  Now imagine you drag another zone next to the first zone. The area of the walls that are adjacent are maybe not brick wall any longer, but perhaps a simple partition wall. That is why the ALTERNATE material of these wall would be assigned as Partition Wall.

Now with your multi-story example:

Since the FLOOR of the upper zone is adjacent to the CEILING of the lower zone, how does Ecotect know which material to choose?  Well yes, it looks at the ALTERNATE material for both surfaces - and they should be the same alternate material or you will get an error message.

So... What you want to do is assign the same FLOOR material as the upper zone as the ALTERNATE material of the CEILING object of the lower zone. 

Now Ecotect will see that the adjacent surface (the entire ceiling/floor assembly) are a floor.  But you will have to make sure that that FLOOR assembly is buildt correctly, i.e. includes the ceiling material of the lower floor.

I hope that makes sense!

Let me know if you have more questions on this topic, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

Cheers,