Walls are Revit’s system families that you can use to create compound walls and curtain walls. Design, project stage, scheduling are a few things that can affect the way how you will model walls in your project. In this article you can find some useful tips for modeling walls.
Walls can be modeled as rigid components with vertical, slanted, or tapered cross-section; or you can create a wall by face using a mass or geometry imported from the other software such as FormIt and Rhino (for more information check Revit tip #4: Rhino – Revit workflow). You can create three types of walls: basic walls, curtain walls, and stacked walls.
- Only model what you need. This rule can apply to any model category. In terms of walls, this means that you don’t need to model unnecessary layers in walls. If you are in the early stage of your project you probably can model just generic walls with a single layer.
- Location line. Pay attention to “Location line” instance parameter. This parameter is important especially when you change the type of the wall. It is not the same when you connect location line to the core and the face of the wall.
- Split by level. Even though your walls go through multiple levels (for example, core walls), the good practice is to split these walls per level. So their height is usually from floor to floor.
- Avoid attaching. The “Attach Top/Base” tool looks as a nice way to stick a wall to a floor. But it’s hard to manage these walls. Their constraint and offset instance parameters are still available but not effective. Use “Attach Top/Base” tool only if you have a special reason for it.
- Reference planes. Use reference planes in different colors to model walls aligned to these planes. You can check all subcategories of reference planes through “Object Styles” dialog (Manage -> Object Styles -> Annotation Objects -> Reference Planes). From here you can create new subcategories to create reference planes for different types of walls (for example, for concrete walls, masonry, gypsum walls, etc.). You can specify line thickness, color and pattern.
- Wall wrapping. Make sure that wall wrapping – both at inserts and ends – is set the way you want. As Wrapping is type parameter, you need to create separate types of wall if you want options with wrapping and without wrapping.
- Mark structural walls. Use instance parameter “Structural” to check structural walls. Later you can filter and schedule these walls, and mark them for structural design.
- Compound wall – one or several walls. Decide would you create compound walls as a single wall with multiple layers, or with multiple wall types. This mostly depends on project stage. If you use multiple wall types you will have more flexibility and produce better drawings.
- Edit profile. If a wall need to have variations in height, it is usually better option to use the “Edit profile” command instead of splitting the wall into several walls. You can still use “Top Constraint” and “Top Offset” instance parameters.
- Modify vertical structure. Revit allows you to extend wall layers up and down but not left and right. If you have two or more layers in a wall (for example masonry core layer and insulation layer) you can extend one of the layers up and down. To do so, go to Edit Type -> Edit (Structure) -> Preview -> set “View” to be section -> click Modify -> now you can click wall layers’ ends and unlock it to make it extendable. Then you can use arrow in your Revit model to adjust these unlocked layers.
- Use Paint tool. If your walls differs only in color of the finish, you probably can keep them the same type and use the Paint tool to apply different colors.
- Wall joins. Sometime joining walls in Revit can be tricky and it can behave in a way you don’t expect. You can try to use “Wall Joins” command and switch between three joining options (butt, mitter and square off).
- Curtain walls and Stacked walls. The Wall system family includes not only standard basic walls but also curtain walls and stacked walls. With curtain walls you can create any type of grid objects. Curtain walls are used together with other two families – curtain panels and curtain wall mullions. With stacked walls you can combine two or more wall types into single wall family. You can combine them only by height.
- Sweeps and reveals. Use sweeps and reveals when you need to create any type of wall profiles. Previously you need to create a Profile external (loadable) family.
- Material Takeoff. Take advantage of the “Material Takeoff” schedules when you need quantities for the wall materials. Add to schedule any fields that begin with “Material:” (for example, Material: Area, Material: Volume, etc.). This is much convenient way to take material quantities in comparison with standard schedule.
