Site Planning

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In this tutorial, you will construct a design for a specific site, the Marin County Civic Center. This tutorial asks the question: If Frank Lloyd Wright had access to design visualization software, how might he have used it in his design process?

Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for his horizontal and cantilevered structures inspired by the American Midwestern prairies. The unique Civic Center in Marin County, California is a fine example of this, with two long horizontal spans radiating from a central domed hub, bridging the hillsides. You will follow Wright's design process and create two long boxes to represent the exteriors of the buildings.

You will pretend you are the famous architect, creating the design for the Library, Hall of Justice, and Administration buildings. You will create a virtual model of your design including the terrain of the site, and then add lighting and animate a fly-around of your design.

You'll start by importing a 2D AutoCAD drawing of contour lines. Next, you'll use the terrain object to generate a virtual 3D model of the site. You'll then build a conceptual design model of the proposed building and fly a virtual camera to circle the design.

Skill level: Beginner to intermediate

Time to complete: 2 hours

Features Covered in This Tutorial

After completing this tutorial, you should be able to:

Import a 2D AutoCAD file.
Create a contour model using Terrain objects.
Apply materials to the terrain.
Model a massing study using primitive objects.
Animate a fly-around of the design.

Tutorial Files

All the files necessary to do the tutorials can be found on the program disc in the \tutorials\land folder, unless otherwise specified. Before doing the tutorials, copy the \tutorials directory from the disc to your local program installation.

Site Planning

Features Covered in This Tutorial

Tutorial Files

Lessons in This Tutorial