During the early planning stages of a building project, you can analyze the conceptual design in several ways and for various purposes.
For example, you can perform the following types of analysis:
- The best mix of uses (such as retail, residential, and office space) for the building
- Rough cost estimates for the exterior of the building, based on linear dimensions or surface area
- HVAC (heating-ventilation-air conditioning) requirements for different levels of the building
To perform these types of analysis, you use mass floors to divide a mass based on defined levels. For each mass floor, the software calculates the floor area, exterior surface area, volume, and perimeter. This information is stored in the instance properties for mass floors. You can include these values in schedules and tags.
