Creating an Elevator Shaft with Separated Walls: A Step-by-Step Guide

Now that we have the stairs complete, we're going to go ahead and shift our focus back to the core here. And the first thing that we'll do is we're going to go ahead and we're going to separate some walls to create a true elevator shaft. And the four walls that make up this box right here are going to need to drop below and go all the way above.

We'll have a pit essentially down below here. And then we're going to run all the way up through the roof. So the first thing we need to do naturally here is we need to split this apart.

And so I'll just grab a point pretty close here. Sometimes it's a little iffy on if it'll give you a good location. So you want to get close, you can see how my mouse is kind of jumping around.

And all I'm doing is just zooming in further as I can to get it pretty close to that edge. And even if you're having a hard time doing it, what I'll do sometimes is I'll break it apart like you see there. Instead of trying to get it exactly split right away.

And then that way, I know that I'll have a good boundary here. This one's a little trickier with the door, but it's still not too bad. We just need to make sure we don't move it too far.

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Like I just did there, because it'll, it'll kick it back into just being one wall. And so if I trim, then I'll get my gap that I'm looking for. And we're going to bring all that back together.

But essentially what we want to do is this wall is going to run from level one all the way up to the bottom of the roof, because it's going to be an elevator shaft. And we're actually going to put a shaft element within that. And so now that we have the space that we're going to work from, we can go to our architecture tab and shaft.

And then I can draw in the shaft here and I'll just use a rectangle tool to create the boundary. And then I can set the elevation. So the base offset is going to be negative four.

And then my top constraint is going to be up to the roof and I'll finish the sketch. If I were to go to 3D view now, and if we were to peek underneath, you can see, we actually have a hole here where that's going to exist. And the same thing could happen if we were to send this up beyond the roof elevation, we'd have a hole through the roof.

And so any element, any horizontal element that the shaft cuts is going to get clipped from that. Now if we go back to level one, what we can do is we can edit type and duplicate. And we'll go ahead and change this from interior four and seven eighths partition.

And we're going to go ahead and call this a shaft wall because it is going to be a different wall type. And so we'll go ahead and we'll say edit here, and we're going to change our metal stud layer to a rated metal stud type. And it's essentially the same thing, but all we're going to do is we're going to change our, our cut pattern on this to be a rated pattern type.

And you can see, we don't have any of those loaded in. So that's something that we'll have to create, but for right now, we're going to go ahead and duplicate this. And instead of just metal stud layer, what I'll do is I'll change this to metal stud layer one hour.

And then that way we can use this stud type, assign the appropriate cut pattern to it. And then we'll have a different look on this wall type.

Now that we have completed the stairs, we'll shift our focus back to the core here. The first thing we'll do is separate some walls to create a true elevator shaft. The four walls forming this box will need to extend below and above.

We’ll essentially have a pit below here. We will then run all the way up to the roof. The first thing we need to do here is split this apart.

I'll grab a point close by. Sometimes it's uncertain whether it will provide a good location. You want to get close; you can see how my mouse is jumping around.

I’m zooming in as much as I can to get close to the edge. If you're having trouble, I sometimes break it apart, as shown here, instead of trying to split it exactly right away. That way, I’ll have a good boundary here.

This one’s a bit trickier with the door, but it’s still manageable. We just need to ensure we don’t move it too far. Like I just did there, because it will revert back to being one wall. If I trim, I'll create the gap I'm looking for. We’ll bring everything back together.

Essentially, this wall will run from level one to the bottom of the roof, as it will be an elevator shaft. We’ll place a shaft element within that. Now that we have the space to work with, we can go to our architecture tab and select "shaft."

I can then draw the shaft here using the rectangle tool to create the boundary. I can then set the elevation. The base offset will be negative four. My top constraint will be up to the roof, and then I'll finish the sketch.

If we go to the 3D view now and peek underneath, we’ll see a hole where the shaft will be. The same would happen if we send this up beyond the roof elevation; we’d have a hole through the roof. Any horizontal element that the shaft cuts will be clipped.

If we go back to level one, we can edit the type and duplicate it. We’ll change this from "interior four and seven-eighths partition." We’ll call this a "shaft wall" because it will be a different wall type. We’ll edit this and change the metal stud layer to a rated metal stud type.

It's essentially the same, but we’ll change the cut pattern to a rated pattern type. As you can see, none of those are loaded in. We’ll need to create this, but for now, we’ll duplicate it. Instead of just "metal stud layer, " I’ll change this to "metal stud layer one hour." This way, we can use this stud type and assign the appropriate cut pattern to it. This will give the wall type a different appearance.