Site: concrete rear yard in urban setting - roof or floor or what?

[rteplow]

Still modeling my city apartment building and need to add rear and side paved yards (all concrete slabs). I've watched a bunch of site videos and am not sure if I should use floors, roofs, or something else - or does it matter? Because it's urban, I don't see a need to add topography, but I would like to be able to indicate drainage. There is a path through the building from side yard to rear and I would do that as a ramp. Looking forward to best practices advice. Thanks in advance.

[barthbradley]

Roof or Floor? Six of one; half dozen of another, for the most part. Can you post a sketch or something showing us what you have in mind?  

[rteplow]

Hope this helps:

[mpukas · Accepted solution]

For concrete slabs/patios/pavers I typically use floors. One advantage is if you change the thickness, the top stays at the same level and the change happens at the bottom so you don't have to change the level offset. Roofs change thickness at the top so the plate height will stay the same. One advantage to using roofs for decks is the ability to use the fascia tool to add fascia trim to the face of deck framing. Fascias can only be applied to roofs. If you use a floor for a deck and want to add fascia trim, you have to create a family such as a line based generic model. Try a test with each method and see what works best for you. 

[barthbradley]

Do you have full Revit (not LT)? Reason I ask, is that with full Revit you have shape editing tools that would be helpful here (via Modify Sub-Elements). 

[rteplow]

Revit LT

[syman2000 · Accepted solution]

I work with both and both have quirkiness. Most often I would choose floor over roof if you are doing sidewalk or pavement in general. When you change thickness, the thickness will change the depth. For roof, I use it if you are doing lot of vegetation and give height of the grass or brush. However you have to manually take into account to the height changes. So offset is what you need to do constantly.

[rteplow]

Thank you, everyone!