Wall Join Corner Reveals

[pnelson]

Revit 2010

I have a condition where I am trying join Wall A to Wall B. Both walls are Generic wall types, of 2 different thicknesses. These building walls are existing, and the material of the walls will remain generic for the duration of the project.

I am trying to make the walls join, but have a vertical reveal at the corner, as indicated by the line work at C.

What is the best way to accomplish this joined condition. I have several similar instances & I am not sure how to achieve this.

[Andre Carvalho]

Right click on the wall and select the option Disallow Join. Do the same to the other wall. Now drag their ends to where you want and use the Join Geometry tool to join them together.

Andre Carvalho

[pnelson]

thank you thank you thank you. i knew it couldn't be that complicated, i just had no idea where to start. thanks again. this is the reason i love this site.

[tomnewsom]

When modelling existing conditions, I find myself Disallowing Join more often than not. It's a life saver.

Now all I need is a 'generic' wall that can have Thickness as an Instance Parameter. Please!

[Scott Womack]

Now all I need is a 'generic' wall that can have Thickness as an Instance Parameter. Please!

Tom, I understand the desire for instance based generic wall width, but also I dread this ever happening. One of two things would have to occur. Either this instance Generic wall would NEVER be able to be changed to another wall type, or they would have to make all walls instance width based, and that would be an unmitigated disaster! That would mean you could no longer be able to edit a wall style, and get all walls of that type to change their width, since they would all contain an instance parameter.

[tomnewsom]

My ideal implementation would probably have Instance wall as a seperate wall category, like Basic, Curtain and Stacked. You could change them to Basic walls (or curtain walls!) but you'd get the same errors and hassle you always get with such a conversion. Individual Types of this Category would just have a single material definition, like any other arbitrary solid.

Anything to avoid a family browser like this:

[Scott Womack]

My ideal implementation would probably have Instance wall as a seperate wall category, like Basic, Curtain and Stacked. You could change them to Basic walls (or curtain walls!) but you'd get the same errors and hassle you always get with such a conversion. Individual Types of this Category would just have a single material definition, like any other arbitrary solid.

Anything to avoid a family browser like this:

I don't have an issue with that type of concept, as long as they become another catagory. I don't want to deal with instanced based exterior walls that would become a larger nightmare to control on large complex projects. I live and die with the ability to make a change to a wall style an know it is changed in all locations, even in stacked walls.

My current solution is not any better. I draw the existing building using our standard wall types, and then rename each of the styles used in it to add Existing in front of it. This is also because of our implementation of e-Specs. I use generic walls as a check to ensure that by the time CD's are started, no Generic wall styles are left being used in the project.

Take Care!

[tomnewsom]

Here's an example of the sort of floorplan instance walls would be useful for. 100 years old, rennovated, modified, subsided and gnereally messy. No two walls are alike. When I was starting out with Revit, I used in-place solids to model this sort of thing, but that slows things down massively, plus hosting doors and windows was inconsistently sucessful - some families would take, some wouldn't. Demolition of individual walls was also rather tricky!

[patricks]

WOW that almost makes you want to model the entire thing as one big in-place family in the Walls category!

One thing I find myself doing when working with existing buildings is choosing Disallow Join at the ends of new walls that will abut existing walls. If you don't, the core layer will extend into the existing wall's core layer (if it's not a generic wall). Sometimes we use generic walls for existing, but sometimes we don't if we know the exact wall construction.

[mmiles]

Here's an example of the sort of floorplan instance walls would be useful for. 100 years old, rennovated, modified, subsided and gnereally messy. No two walls are alike. When I was starting out with Revit, I used in-place solids to model this sort of thing, but that slows things down massively, plus hosting doors and windows was inconsistently sucessful - some families would take, some wouldn't. Demolition of individual walls was also rather tricky!

The awful truth is that these old buildings - and the figure/ground type of drawings - have columns, or other strucutral elements embedded in those wildly varying shapes. There is a good chance that the varying thickness are built up with layers and layers of plaster, or similar materials. There becomes a need to either "gut" things in order to get a more realistic picture of the building, or a way to quickly model (quick to build; and not burden the project/computer) the figure/ground. The methods we use for renovations require us to go in and out of really detailing the existing conditions - which is time consuming - and being conscience of the inaccuracies in the model. In our practice, it is not uncommon to assume the inaccuracies are okay, and something to deal with in the field, and with on-the-fly finish details. A custom shape column family can often be used to account for those lager massed areas. then a generic wall can be jplaced where opening are required, and joined to those columns.

But I agree that having instance parameters for wall thickness would be a nightmare waiting to happen. It would open the way for disabling the built-in intelligence of the program. The disallow join and join geometry tools are very handy; also, split walls.