Can I embed a curtain wall in another curtain wall?

[patricks]

I may not be going about this the best way.

Basically we have a renovation project, where the existing building has some aluminum storefront double doors, with a small transom above the door. We're going to be removing the double doors and replacing it with a center mullion, a single door, and a side light about the size of the other door that was there (minus the mullion thickness).

So I had this idea of changing the glazed system panel (the size of the double door) to a wall type, and then hosting a double glass door family with no trim. This just represents the existing door, which gets demolished on the new phase. So I use the little hammer tool, and it demolishes as it should, so far so good.

Now I switch over to my new plan, and I find that no infill wall came back in place of the door I just demolished. I was planning on using another curtain wall object anyway to create the new door and sidelight, which would sit inside the existing curtain wall. I was going to see if the curtain wall panel (changed to a basic wall type) would host another curtain wall, but it will not.

So anyway, when I made the new curtain wall inside the existing one, it says one overlaps the other one, but I cannot join geometry to embed one inside the other.

I really don't want to create families for each entire storefront instance, because the whole storefront is not actually getting demolished. Only a couple of double doors are coming out.

Is there another way to go about doing this?

[greg.mcdowell]

Did you try nesting the curtain wall in the infill directly instead of through another generic wall?

[patricks]

I did not get any infill after demolishing the door.

I changed the glazed curtain panel to a basic wall type, inserted a regular door that matched the size of that panel exactly, and then demolished it. I was left with an empty hole in the existing storefront.

I need the new door/sidelight to be a storefront object, also, but I have nothing to embed it into, and I get a warning when I place the new storefront in-line with the existing storefront.

[dbaldacchino]

Instead of changing the panel to a basic wall, I would change it to an empty system panel. Then model your basic wall within the opening (uncheck the "Automatically Embed" option in your curtainwall). Now host a door in the wall and demolish it. The wall will be infilled and you'll be able to host a new door in that infill in a future phase. Does this do the trick?

[patricks]

Instead of changing the panel to a basic wall, I would change it to an empty system panel. Then model your basic wall within the opening (uncheck the "Automatically Embed" option in your curtainwall). Now host a door in the wall and demolish it. The wall will be infilled and you'll be able to host a new door in that infill in a future phase. Does this do the trick?

If I turn off "automatically embed" for the curtain wall, and then place a 4" basic wall in that "empty panel" opening, it still gives me the walls overlapping error. I cannot join geometry between the 4" basic wall and the curtain wall. I CAN join the 4" basic wall to the main existing exterior wall, but then the entire 4" basic wall disappears.

If I place the door before joining, then the 4" basic wall also disappears anyway because the door is the exact size of the empty panel opening (and the 4" wall), so then I have nothing to pick to join the walls.

I suppose I will just live with the warnings. There's only 2 of them, and it looks perfect in plan and elevation in both existing and new construction views.

[Andre Carvalho]

What if you, instead of using an empty panel, just edit the profile of your curtain wall (to create the opening), then draw a regular wall on that space. They won't overlap and you will have the infill you are looking for.

Andre Carvalho

[patricks]

I think there would be problems because this curtain wall (really just a storefront) is only the double door w/ transom above.

To edit the curtain wall to leave me a space for the door would require 2 thin 2"-wide strips on each side where the mullions are, and I think Revit would go crazy if I tried to apply a 2" mullion to a 2"-wide area of curtain wall.

Oh well, I'll just leave it the way it is. Despite the warnings, it looks/works/schedules perfectly in every view.