Curtain Wall Tool Rules

[Andre Baros]

I just have to give 3 cheers for the curtain wall tool. It makes everything easy, for example

Shelving Units and Millwork:
I created grid lines for each upright and shelf, profiles for each, and viola, shelving. You can even add doors by adding a custom solid panel with two solids. Very Very flexible.

"Curtain" Wall:
For a room divider which is literally a curtain, I simply created a wavy curtain wall panel. It's still not parametric, but I will do that soon so that I can use it next to each residential window. Sometimes it defines a room, sometimes it doesn't, Very Very flexible.

Exposed portion of a stud wall:
Curtain wall "studs" for mullions... curtain wall "drywall" panels... now if only I could phase mullions and panels seperately... hmm.

Windows:
During design I just want a window which stretches with my walls... so until I have things worked out I use a curtain wall with no subdivisions... it's not as easy to switch out a new type but it's much nicer during DD.

I'm only on my third Revit project so I'll add more uses to the curtain wall tool as I go.

[sbrown]

you can use a curtain wall for curved railings also, I needed you make a bridge that was bowed and couldn't get a railing to follow a curve in elevation, but was able with the curtain wall.

[Henry D]

On residential projects, curtain walls can also be used for screened porches - it's really fast and looks great.

[3dway]

I'd like to find out more on using curtain wall for windows during DD.
Often the architect wants to switch around the mullion arrangement in a window and wants to see it right away. Stopping, going into the family editor, making the desired mullion arrangement.... takes longer than an impatient architect is willing to wait.

Is this a solution for doing this sort of on the fly design work in front of the designer's eyes?

Not as easy as switching a family in and out?

[Andre Baros]

We just sketch in the grid lines. If you have different divisions in different panels you can nest curtain walls... any panel of a curtain wall can be any wall type in your project, including another curtain wall.

So you would insert a curtain wall, stretch it to the size you want, add a few divisions, done. Use the rules setting for the curtain wall type to fill in the mullions for you. If you have a top panel with some extra divisions (for example) just swap that panel to a new curtain wall and divide away without changing your other panels. Need an arch top, edit sketch. Just be careful with the nesting thing, we've had some projects here where the divisions got removed and we ended up with a curtain wall inside a curtain wall inside a curtain wall for no reason. If you don't need the divisions any more, swap the panel back to a standard panel.

[sthedens]

In some cases you can get too clever using the curtain wall tool for non-curtain wall situations.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=102342