Mastering Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2013

Chapter 13

Walls and Curtain Walls

According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) document E202 BIM Protocol Exhibit (the AIA's current contract document for BIM), there are five levels of model development ranging from 100 to 500. If you examine excerpts from the model content requirements describing each level of development (LOD) for the design professions — LOD 100, LOD 200, and LOD 300 — the evolution of modeling granularity becomes apparent. Although LOD 100 represents a conceptual level of information defined as “overall building massing,” LOD 200 and LOD 300 are represented by “generalized systems or assemblies” and “specific assemblies,” respectively. This chapter will help you create walls that comply with both LOD 200 and LOD 300.

Four different kinds of walls can be created: basic walls, stacked walls, curtain walls, and in-place walls. In this chapter, you'll explore the skills you'll need to create and customize walls to meet the needs of your design. You will also dive into the new and exciting realm of complex curtain wall and panel generation made possible with the conceptual massing tools in Autodesk^® Revit^® Architecture software.

In this chapter, you'll learn to:

• Use extended modeling techniques for basic walls
• Create stacked walls
• Create simple curtain walls
• Create complex curtain walls

Using Extended Modeling Techniques for Basic Walls

As you might already know, walls in the Revit environment are made from layers of materials that can represent generic ...