Walkout Basement with retaining walls

[TopDog]

Hi, I'm trying to model a two story house with a daylight basement. There's a walkout to the back with approx. 4' retaining walls on each side. I've tried about 15 ways to model this with unsatisfactory results.

 

This is as close as I've come. I cut a hole in the terrain, and put a slab in, and retaining walls. Obviously, there are some problems. The walls are too high, and the hole in the terrain seems to have a material associated that is showing against the house.

 

I've tried making elevation regions with the terrain, but I end up with totally screwed up terrain contours, the stuff of terrain nightmares with huge holes and gigantic hills etc.

 

Eventually, I'd like to add two mirror image curved sections of retaining wall abutted to the straight sections, and then steps leading up to grade.

 

 

 

 

Here's an overhead view of what I want to model.

Can someone tell me the right way to do this with HD Architectural 2015? Thanks!!!

Walkout Basement Plan 1.10.plan

[DavidJPotter]

See if some of these Knowledge Base help articles help.

 

https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/search/?q=walk+out+basement+with+retaining+walls&default_tab=support

 

DJP

[Jo_Ann]

You are on the right track.  

Change all the walls to railing walls.  Set them as solid, and change the newel height to 48".

Change their material.

Extend the center of the outer front wall and add 2 diagonal walls.  Change the arc on the diagonal walls.

Reshape your floor slab polyline, then do the same thing on level 1 to the terrain hole line. 

 

I think you will have to make each step with a custom shaped slab.

[TopDog]

Thank you for your help, Jo_Ann. FWIW I've spent hours reading articles and searching but retaining walls just won't work the way I think they should. Maybe if they weren't attached to the house?... anyway...

 

I used the Build Wall > Build Railing and Deck > Build Straight Railing. Is this what you meant?

 

I am trying, but the posts that hold up the deck disappear. Also, I keep getting this warning:

Deck is over a non-deck room. Framing may not be correct.

 
Any advice?

 

 

[Jo_Ann]

Use either a half-wall or a railing wall (they are the same thing),  Set the thickness of the wall, and the height of the newels.  You are building a 'room'.   Reshape the 'room' by extending out a portion of the front, and adding a diagonal wall on each side   (extending back to the original side walls).
Right click each diagonal wall and and select 'change arc'.
Open the room dbx and set it as a 'court' with no roof.   Set the floor (C) at -114'.
Delete the slab you drew in, it's no longer needed.
On level 1,  you have a polyline with a glass material.  What is that?
Reshape the terrain hole to be correct  (turn on the 'reference floor display' to see where to place it).
The deck posts disappear because the deck is now over a room.  Ignore the warning message.
Remake the deck posts with a soffit or box shape and put them where you want them to be.

[TopDog]

Thanks again for your help Jo_Ann - I'm definitely making progress - see attached. I do have some questions though.

 

Most importantly, how can I build arcing stone steps leading out to the yard (see my original sketch)? I just put in a regular staircase and changed the material for a quick result, but it doesn't work nicely with the side walls.

2nd - the deck surface renders in full perspective view, but when I use the floor camera view, it disappears. Is this normal?

Very excited for the progress made so far - thanks again.

 

 

[Jo_Ann]

Steps: see post#3

camera:  read up on the camera views in the knowledge base

[TopDog]

Thanks again for all the help. I have found another way of doing this which might be of interest to others. It took quite a bit of trial and error, and I'm not certain of the order I did things, but here are the basic elements.

 

First, retaining walls. I had thought that one of the keys was to ensure that they did not connect to the house walls, so as to avoid making a room. That may have been the case when using pony walls, I don't recall if it was critical when using a retaining wall.

 

Then a terrain hole the same shape as the patio, including walls.

 

An elevation region is used to set the 'depth' of the patio. It follows the contour of the inside of the retaining walls pretty closely. It should match exactly, or be a bit inside the inside of the wall, I think.

 

Next a slab to form the floor of the patio. It abutts the inside of the retaining wall.

 

 

And finally, the secret that made it all work - an elevation region ringing the retaining wall. I had a ***** of a time with terrain going nuts and doing ridiculous things while figuring this out - this settles it down somewhat. I'd get 10 foot hills in the middle of nowhere, retaining walls that had jagged tops, you name it. I don't think that part of the program works properly.

 

I added slab steps as Jo_Ann suggested.

 

Hope this is helpful to others.

 

One problem that still remains - the tops of the retaining walls do not render properly. They should be showing a gray brick material. I think this has to do with wall top being exactly the same level as the flat terrain. When the terrain is sloped, sometimes part of the wall tops render properly.

 

I would like to make the retaining walls higher than the terrain by 4" or something, but haven't found a way to do that.