Feasibility Study

Working with Fill-Type Garages

written by

Clifton Harness

In this article

What is a Fill-Type Garage?

Simply put? Fill a site with parking in an irregular fashion. TestFit handles three major fill-type garage scenarios with parking: The Podium Fill; The Donut; and The Donut + Wrap. Sounds pretty appetizing, right?

The Podium Fill

Fill the site with parking, put building on top of it. To achieve this, simply select "podium fill" on the preset panel.

Site with garage parking and building on top

The Texas Donut

Fill the entire site with parking, but line the garage with housing units. Affectionately called the "Texas Donut". In TestFit, simply select "donut" on the presets panel.

Garage lined with housing units aka Donut Fill

parking surrounded by housing units in TestFit

The Filled Donut + Wrap

Sometimes a site has a weird shape, and the garage is used to regularize that shape. This is less easy to achieve in TestFit, but still achievable.Step One: Select donut from the preset panelStep Two: Slide a setback to shrink the garage footprintStep Three: Set building wrap levels to 5Step Four: "Explode" the model to manual modeStep Five: Reset the setbacksStep Six: Manually add building massStep Seven: Solve by toggling out of manual mode

Regularize an odd site shape with the garage and TestFit's Donut Fill

Here is a swift comparison, with two "Donut Fill + Wrap" options:

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About Author

Clifton Harness loves to build—buildings & now companies. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Architecture. Soon after joining a real estate development company as an architect, Clifton started working with college roommate Ryan Griege after hours to innovate deal processes, which soon grew into TestFit. Clifton lives in Dallas with his wife Annalise, children Savannah and Wells, and his golden doodle, Brinkley.