by Dennis Collin
When working with Revit’s curtain wall tools, users often comment on the fact that, despite the curtain grid being curved, the glazing panels display as facetted along with the bounding mullions.
Fig 1. A curved curtain wall to the left looks a bit rough whereas the smoother result to the right is what desired!
Unfortunately, it is not possible to have the panels curved, but by making use of a replacement wall system family to behave as a panel, users can achieve quite a credible workaround!
Many users do not realise that Basic wall families can be used as Curtain Wall panels to resolve certain modelling issues like Curtain wall corners and as curved curtain panels.
Fig 2. Use Basic wall families to form curved curtain wall panels!
Create a new wall type with a suitable panel material, such as glass and an appropriate thickness, in this example 25mm.
Fig 3. These wall families can be assigned as Curtain Wall panel infills!
This wall type can be assigned to a curtain wall system family as the preferred panel type as shown in the figure above.
Fig 4. Halfway there? Curved panels but facetted mullions.
This will create a curtain wall with curved panels, but any standard mullions placed will still facet at grid intervals. The vertical mullions are fine, but the horizontal mullions will need to be placed by alternate means.
Fig 5. Use Wall embedded sweeps to represent the horizontal mullion elements.
To achieve curved horizontal mullions, a profile family can be assigned to the wall panel family. Assigned as a sweep with an appropriate aluminium material will complete the curved curtain wall system and its curved frame.
Fig 6. Almost there? The curved system just lacks the top mullion.
For the top row of panels, a profile will also be required for the top. This can be achieved by duplicating the wall family (call it top panel or similar) and add a second profile attached to the top edge of the wall. These panels can be assigned manually, but they will need to be unpinned first. Once complete the curved curtain wall system should display like the final illustration in Figure 8.
Fig 7. Creating a 2nd panel style with profiles assigned to the top and bottom edges of the ‘panel’.
Revit’s Match type properties tool can be helpful in this final step in painting the desired panel style onto the final row of elements. NB. Ensure elements to be changed are unpinned!
Fig 8. Curved Curtain wall, panels, and frame!
As well as being used to produce curved panels and mullions, wall families as panels can also be used to form mitred glass infills. The process for which is discussed on the following post here.