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Modelling of Doors, Windows & Curtain Walls

Modelling of Doors, Windows & Curtain Walls

Whether to use Curtain Walls as opposed to loadable Door & Window families is a difficult to decision to make. Ideally for scheduling purposes it works best to maintain a consistent approach so you don’t have to schedule some elements in one schedule and others in another.

Curtain Walls

Curtain Walls are a great early design tool offering unlimited flexibility, but can become frustrating during documentation stages.

Positives

  • Control which panes are operable vs fixed and their types of operation (Awning, Casement, Sliding, etc),

  • Exact positions of Transoms and Mullions

  • Have non-continuous Transoms and Mullions

  • Gives the ability to embed doors.

  • Easily create Corner Glazing configurations or Raked conditions

Negatives

  • Inability to have “Standard Sizes/Types” for panes/overall size and grid layouts. Everything is an instance, so when you want to repeat a standard window layout it is much more cumbersome and its easy for a user to inaccurately model the Window to 1199mm wide instead of 1200mm.

  • Inability to use “Legend Components” for graphical schedules

  • Whilst you can schedule Curtain Wall Panels with normal Windows and Doors, the sizes are measured from the internal face of the surrounding mullions, where typically we want these dimensions to be external or we want to schedule the entire assembly rather than just the pane. Whilst we can do the latter, its actually a Wall Schedule (filtered to just include Curtain Walls) and as such appears separately to conventional Door and Window schedules.

  • If you delete a host wall, the curtain wall will remain.

Doors & Windows

Door & Window Families configured correctly are best to achieve standard configurations.

Positives

  • Type Catalogues allow quick loading of standard sizing and configurations making odd dimensions less likely.

  • Ability to utilise Legend Components

  • These are hosted elements and therefore won’t get orphaned should their host be deleted.

  • Better Wall Layer Wrapping controls

Negatives

  • Require great content creation skills to develop

  • Difficult to achieve a balance between ease of use and functionality particularly with trying to support non-continuous mullions/transoms along with the ability to control the operation type for each individual pane or combinations of Doors with Windows (side lite/high lite).

  • The more families the greater the chance of inconsistency of graphical styling and coordination.

  • Corner and Raking conditions are difficult to support.

Recommended Usage

Because the Xrev Generic Revit Content Door & Window families offer millions of configurations,

Door & Window Families should be used in preference to curtain walls. These are to be hosted within a wall and modelled as loadable standard door and window families.
Where there is a floor to ceiling glazed façade, Curtain Walls are to be used in combination with a variety of the Xrev Curtain Wall Panel Window and Door Families. These embedded components are created as purpose made Curtain Wall Panel families of the Door or Window category (as appropriate).
There are numerous types of Glazed Walls/Curtain Walls setup with the Company Template for Timber Framed, Aluminium Framed, Frameless systems with glazing options for various thicknesses, and alignments for Front, Centre, or Rear glazed.
The Curtain Walls will be tagged as Walls using a fit for purpose Wall Tag which resembles the Window Tag. These are then scheduled separately from the Standard Window Schedule.
Roller Shutters are to be modelled and scheduled as Doors.

NOTE:

If its still unclear which you should be using in your project, please consult your BIM Manager.

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