A wrap building design is a construction method where a central parking garage is surrounded by residential or commercial structures, also known as a "Texas doughnut". This design efficiently uses land by keeping parking within the building's footprint, making it popular for multifamily housing in urban areas where space is limited.
Wraps can maximize density on a small lot. The design keeps parking close to residents or occupants and can improve visual appeal and security by hiding the garage from the street.
Let's learn how to design a wrap in Giraffe!
Start with Parking
Select "Multi-Deck" from the Landscape & parking tool. Draw a rectangle to represent the parking structure.
Add levels. Usually wraps are 5-6 levels.
Show Air Space
In a wrap, the residential building is a separate structure that encircles the garage. A space is often required between the garage and residential structure for safety, ventilation, and differences in structural codes, depending on your jurisdiction.
Use the Guideline property to add a snappable offset to the parking structure.
With the parking geometry selected, click the + to add a property in the properties palette. Search "Guideline" and add it.
Set the guideline offset to the air space required for your project.
A snappable guide is added to the geometry.
Add a Podium
As with the 5 over 1 design, wraps also often feature amenities, retail or commercial space on the ground level.
Select the desired usage from the Buildings tool. Instead of using the Rectangle method, this time we'll select the line method by clicking the line icon to the right of the Usage name.
Click to place the control points. Use s to snap to the guidelines. Double click to end the line.
Change the offset distance in the properties palette. Change the offset direction, if necessary.
Fill with Residential
The simplest way to add residential to the model is to copy the existing podium and change the usage.
Select the podium, and use ctrl + c / ctrl + v to copy and paste in place OR use alt + click to quick copy.
Change the Usage to Residential in the properties palette. If the stacking is incorrect, adjust the stack order as well.
Add levels as desired to create the building mass.
Add Legs
Wraps often have extensions on some or all sides that increase livable area without adding additional parking.
To add legs, simple draw additional area with the line-based building tools.
In this example, an enclosed courtyard is added, with an amenity ground floor and units above.
The line offset is applied to both sides to create a double-loaded corridor condition.
Finishing Up
On this site, there's space for extra amenities and out buildings. We've added some retail pad sites and community spaces to complete the development.
You can also automate wraps with our Flow Features tool. Try it out!
