Curtain Walls, Metal Panels and Wall Thickness

[bwilliams133]

I need to create a wall which has the thickness of a "normal" wall, such as metal stud or CMU, then I need to have rectangular metal panels on the exterior face with 1/4" reveals (basically a rainscree system). I'm experimenting and researching how I could do this. I think I can get my look for the elevations with a curtain wall and can find some info on how to make that into a metal panel. But in plan, the curtain wall is only a few inches thick so my plan won't be drawn correctly. I don't want to draw two walls next to each other because as items change, I can see that only being a disaster.

I've read something about nesting walls, but can't find any details on how to accomplish that. I don't see how to change the thickness of a curtain wall either. Does anyone have suggestions? We're in schematic with this project and I foresee it changing considerably as we go so I need to have the abiltity to make some changes without too much of a headache.

Thanks.

[damon.sidel]

There are a lot of methods for what you want. Here are three solutions, I'm sure others will chime in:
1. Curtain panels only: You can change the thickness of your curtain panel. Select a panel in your curtain wall and change it's thickness (this assumes you've already made a new type of panel). Done!
2. Nested wall: Create a basic wall type that has the layering you need (interior finish, structure, air space, metal panel for example). Select your curtain wall and edit type. The third parameter is called Curtain Panel. Simply change this to your new wall type.
3. Depending on the complexity of your paneling system, if all you need to do is show joints for the panels, you may consider a basic wall type early in the project with either model lines or wall sweeps to show the joints. In plan you get a simple wall and in elevation/3D you can control the joints. If you have a lot of joints that are equally spaced, you may opt for the curtain wall system, but if it is irregular and/or a small number of joints, this might do the trick.

Just a few ideas. Personally, for early schematic, I'd go with option 2, but with one caveat: on many of our projects, we like to poche our walls black in plans using the coarse scale fill pattern, so any joints in the curtain wall would not show in plan. If you don't do this, you'll see each panel division in plan, which might not be desirable.