Exercise 1–Add Curtain Walls

Curtain walls can be used for a variety of design features. Whether your application is a full glazed wall exterior curtain wall, strip window or interior glass partitions, the curtain wall can prove quite versatile.

Catch-up file completed to this point: 09_Medical Center_Curtain-Walls_A.rvt

Create a glass entryway

Be sure that Level 1 floor plan is the current view. Close any other open view tabs or windows.

Zoom in around the lower-right portion of the plan (between Grids J9 and K10).
On the Architecture tab, on the Build panel, click the Wall tool (or press wa).
On the Properties palette, from the Type Selector, choose the: Curtain Wall: Storefront type.
For the Unconnected Height, input: 14'-0".
Click the first point directly on the horizontal wall running along Grid J about 3'-0" from Grid 10 (see Figure 9–1).

Figure 9–1 Begin drawing a curtain wall

Move the mouse straight down and click when the dimension reads: 10'-0".
Move horizontally to the left and click when the dimension reads: 22'-0" (see Figure 9–2).

Figure 9–2 Use onscreen temporary dimensions to guide the length of each curtain wall segment

Move straight back up and click on the original horizontal wall to finish (see Figure 9–3).
Click the Modify tool to cancel (or press esc twice).

Figure 9–3 Finish by clicking back on the original wall

Adjust a Curtain Wall

You can adjust the mullion spacing as needed. This is sometimes easier in elevation.

On the Project Browser, double-click the South elevation view to open it.
Zoom in on the Curtain Wall at the right.
On the Architecture tab, click the Curtain Grid tool (see Figure 9–4).

Figure 9–4 The Curtain Grid Tool

Highlight the bottom edge of the curtain wall (see Figure 9–5).

A dashed vertical line will appear indicating where the gird will go when you click.

Figure 9–5 Add a vertical curtain grid using the temporary dimension to guide you

Click within the second bay from the left about 1'-0" from the middle bay.
Create another one in the fourth bay (to the right of the middle one, also 1'-0" from the middle bay) (see Figure 9–6).

Figure 9–6 Create another grid on the opposite side

Press esc twice to cancel.

Adding a Door to a Curtain Wall

You can’t use the Door tool to add a door in a curtain wall. Instead you replace one of the panels in the curtain wall with a specially configured curtain wall door. There are some of these in the default Doors folder of the out-of-the-box library. But first, let’s prepare the bay we need.

Hold down the ctrl key and click to select each of the mullions in the middle bay as shown in Figure 9–7.

Verify that the quantity on the Properties palette, just below the Type Selector, reports that we have 5 items selected.

Figure 9–7 Select the mullions in the middle where we want the door to go

On the Modify tab, on the Modify panel, click the Unpin tool (or press up).
Press the delete key to remove these mullions.

It is important to first unpin them. When they are pinned, they are controlled by the overall settings of the curtain wall and cannot be changed or deleted. Unpinning allows us to modify them separately without changing the overall settings of the curtain wall’s type.

Click one of the grid lines that remain. On the Modify ribbon, click the Add/Remove Segments button.
Click again on the empty spot.

The grid segment will remove merging the two bays (see Figure 9–8).

Figure 9–8 Use the Add/Remove Segments command to remove the two empty gridline segments and merge them into one large bay

Repeat on the other grid line.
On the Insert tab, click the Load Family button.

Revit should remember the last folder you loaded from above; the Commercial folder. The family we need is in the Doors folder. Which is back one level from the Commercial folder.

Browse to the Doors folder, select the Door-Curtain-Wall-Double-Storefront.rfa family and then click Open.

Figure 9–9 Browse to the Doors folder and load a curtain wall door family

If you don’t have this folder or family, a copy has been provided with the dataset. You can load it from there.

Highlight the bottom edge of the modified center bay. Press tab to highlight the panel within that bay and then click.

You may have to tab a second time to highlight the panel.

Figure 9–10Use the tab key to select the panel and unpin it

Unpin this panel. You can use the small icon that appears in canvas, or press up.
On the Properties palette, from the Type Selector, choose: Door-Curtain-Wall-Double-Storefront (see Figure 9–11).

Figure 9–11 Replace the unpinned panel with the recently loaded curtain door family

Click on the Level 1 tab at the top of the view window to return to Floor Plan Level 1.

Catch-up file completed to this point: 09_Medical Center_Curtain-Walls_B.rvt

Replacing a Wall with a Curtain Wall

You can replace walls already in the file with Curtain Walls as the building design progresses.

Select the exterior horizontal wall along Grid E.
With the ctrl key held down, also select the horizontal wall at Grid J and the small vertical wall at Grid 9 between J and H (see Figure 9–12).

Figure 9–12 Using the ctrl key, select the three walls shown

With these three walls selected, on the Properties palette, change them to Curtain Wall: Storefront.

Zoom in and study the results. If necessary, you can tap the spacebar to flip the walls while they are still selected to make sure the glazing is on the outside (see Figure 9–13).

Figure 9–13 Basic Walls can be substituted with Curtain Walls

For now, we will ignore the intersection of the curtain wall and the wall at J10. But let’s address the connection between the curtain wall and the entry foyer built in the previous exercise.

On the Modify tab, on the Modify panel, click the Align tool (or press al) (see Figure 9–14).

Figure 9–14 The Align tool

For the alignment reference, click on the grid line of the second mullion from the left along the curtain wall at Grid J.
For the entity to align, click the left curtain wall of the foyer (see Figure 9–15).

Figure 9–15 Align the foyer curtain wall with a mullion

The curtain wall moves just fine but notice that the spacing of mullions along the bottom curtain wall adjusts as well; but they don’t stay symmetrical. If this is not obvious, try aligning the curtain wall on the other side as well. It will be more obvious then (see Figure 9–16).

Figure 9–16 Akign the other side and then note the change to the mullion spacing

Cancel the command and then on the QAT, click the undo tool to reverse the alignments (you can also press ctrl+z).
Select the lower horizontal curtain wall (the one with the door).
On the Properties palette, click the Edit Type button.
In the “Type Properties” dialog, click the Duplicate button, input a new name such as: Front Entry and then click OK once (see Figure 9–17).

Figure 9–17 Undo the previous alignments, then duplicate the curtain wall type on the entry wall

Remaining in “Type Properties,” beneath Vertical Grid and Horizontal Grid, choose None for the Layout of both (see Figure 9–18).

Figure 9–18 Remove the automatic grid spacing in both directions

Click OK to finish.
A warning will appear. Click OK (do NOT click Delete Gridline or Cancel) (see Figure 9–19).

Figure 9–19 Click OK to dismiss the warning

What we have done here is disable the automatic spacing of gridlines on this segment of curtain wall. This means that now when you move the adjoining walls, they will no longer try to adjust the mullion spacing.

Repeat the Align process from above to align both sides of the foyer to the mullions of the curtain wall on Grid line J.
Use Trim/Extend Multiple Elements to extend the curtain walls and enclose the space (see Figure 9–20).

Figure 9–20 Re-align the walls with the mullions and then extend them to close the gaps

Catch-up file completed to this point: 09_Medical Center_Curtain-Walls_C.rvt

Embed a Curtain Wall

We can also use curtain walls like windows. We do this by embedding them in another wall. In this way we can create a strip window along the south elevation of the building.

On the Project Browser, locate and expand the Families branch.
Next expand Curtain Wall Mullions and then Rectangular Mullion.
Right-click on 2.5" x 5" rectangular and choose: Duplicate (see ).

2.5" x 5" rectangular 2 will appear.

Rename it to: 6" x 24" rectangular (if necessary, right-click to access Rename).

Figure 9–21Create a duplicate mullion type

Double-click the new mullion to edit its properties.
Change the Thickness to: 2'-0", and both the Width on side 1 and side 2 to: 3" each. Click OK to finish (see Figure 9–22).

Figure 9–22 Change the thickness and width of the new mullion type to match the name we gave it

Stay on the Families branch, expand Walls, then Curtain Wall.
Right-click and Duplicate Storefront and then Rename it to: Ribbon Window.
Edit the Properties of Ribbon Window and change the all the Border Type mullions to the new: 6" x 24" rectangular.

There are four total: Border 1 and 2 for each of horizontal and vertical.

At the top, for the Join Condition, choose: Border and Vertical Grid Continuous and then click OK to finish (see Figure 9–23).

Figure 9–23 Change the border condition all the way around to use the new mullion type

On the Architecture tab, on the Build panel, click the Wall tool.
On the Properties palette, from the Type Selector, choose the: Curtain Wall: Ribbon Window type.
For the Base Offset input: 3'-4".and for the Unconnected Height, input: 5'-0".
Draw the new curtain wall directly on top of the centerline of the existing horizontal wall at Grid H. Make it about 50'-0" long (see Figure 9–24).

Figure 9–24 Draw a new curtain wall using the new type directly on top of the existing exterior wall

The curtain wall will be centered on its host wall.

The curtain wall should still be selected, if it is not, select it now. Edit the 6" temporary dimension and change it to zero (see Figure 9–25).

Figure 9–25 Shift the curtain wall outward by editing the temporary dimension

Open the South elevation and then the default {3D} view to check progress (see Figure 9–26).

Figure 9–26 Check your progress in other views

Revit overview