The building and its grid

Why it matters

The building is the boundary of everything else. Its footprint decides the floor area. Its clear height decides how tall the racks can be. Its columns decide where racks cannot go. Get these three right and the rest of the design stands on solid ground.

In plain words

• The footprint is the outline of the building seen from above.
• The clear height is the height from the floor to the lowest thing under the roof: a beam, a light, a sprinkler. It is not the height of the roof itself.
• The column grid is the regular pattern of steel columns that hold the roof up. Columns are named by a letter and a number, like map squares: column C4 stands where line C crosses line 4.
• The roof can be flat, or pitched with a ridge. Under a pitched roof the clear height changes across the building.
• The site is the land around the building: yards, roads, truck aprons.

In Warehouse Studio

Draw the building

1. On the Facility tab, click Building.
2. Choose a Shape:
   • Rectangle (fast entry): type Origin X (mm), Origin Y (mm), Width (mm) and Depth (mm).
   • Polygon (L / T / multi-sided): type one x, y corner per line, in millimetres.
3. Set the Clear height (mm), for example 12000 for 12 m.
4. Optionally set Orientation (° from north), so that "north" in the drawing matches the real site.
5. Confirm. Press F to fit the drawing on screen.

The inspector, with nothing selected, now shows Gross and Usable floor area.

Origin and directions

X grows to the right, Y grows upward, both in millimetres from the origin. The origin is usually the building's bottom-left corner, 0, 0.

Add the column grid

1. On the Facility tab, click Columns.
2. Set X spacing (mm) and Y spacing (mm), for example 12000 and 10000, and the column size, Column W (mm) and Column D (mm).
3. If the real grid is irregular, type the actual line positions into X grid lines (mm) or Y grid lines (mm), for example 0, 9100, 18200. Leave them blank for an even grid.
4. Choose the labels for each direction. Letters skip I and O so they are never mistaken for 1 and 0. A Label prefix such as EX marks an existing grid.

Grid bubbles appear around the building, and columns are placed at every crossing inside it. The racking generator will keep out of them.

Add a roof (optional)

Click Roof. Choose how the ridge runs, the Clear height at eaves (mm) (the low side), the slope as a Pitch angle (°) or a Rise above eaves (mm), and the Structure depth (mm) of the roof steel. The platform then knows the real clear height at every point, and will warn about a rack that is too tall only where the roof comes down.

Add a site (optional)

Click Site to draw the land around the building. A site lets you draw a yard and roads, and check that trucks can reach each door. Everything outside the building is judged by its own rules.

Try it

In your Sandbox scenario, draw a 120 × 100 m rectangle with a 12 m clear height, then a 12 × 10 m column grid of 400 × 400 mm columns. That is the demo warehouse's shell.

Words you just learned

Footprint · clear height · column grid · grid line · eaves · ridge · site.