Creating Vertical Wall Components In Revit Building 8.1

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Revit Building 8.1 allows users to easily create vertical wall components, sweeps and reveals. Image 1 at right shows an existing Brick on CMU wall.

The wall style can be duplicated to manipulate its structure. It is always good practice to duplicate rather than alter existing object styles in Revit Building. The duplicated style is given a unique name and in this case will always be located in the wall type selector of the current project. We will call this wall “Exterior Wall – Brick and CMU.” (see Image 2)

By viewing the structural properties of the wall in section, we can insert a new layer to the exterior side. Since the intention is to create a vertical wall component, the function of this new layer will be Finish 1 (exterior finish layer).  (see image 3)

To change the material of the new layer, click on the down arrow in the material cell and select “Masonry – Concrete Masonry Units” from the listing on the left hand side of the Materials dialogue box. From the image below you can see that the shading is a grayish tone and the material texture when rendered represents CMU.  (see image 4)

The layer thickness will be the same as Layer 2 and can be set when using the “Assign Layers” function. However, you must first use the “Split Region” button to track your cursor along the exterior edge of the wall section. In this case, we will track 3’-0” thus indicating that the first 3’-0” of the vertical wall exterior will be CMU and the rest will be brick.  (see image 5)

Once the split has been achieved, use the “Assign Layers” button to set the first 3’-0” of the exterior face to be Layer 1 (CMU).  Image 6 at right shows the resultant components in section.

It is also easy to add wall sweeps and reveals by clicking on their respective buttons at the bottom of the Edit Assembly dialogue box.  Image 7 at right shows the listing of sweep profiles in the default Revit template. The “Load Profile” button can be used to browse Windows Explorer and set the path to a listing of profiles. Revit Building 8.1 has a sizeable amount of architectural and structural profiles in the Imperial Library.

Once the type of profile has been selected, set its material and distance from either the top or bottom of the wall section. Use the Offset category to indent the sweep into the exterior face. Image 8 at right shows the “Wall Sweeps” dialogue box open and a view of the wall in section, allowing for a quick preview of the sweep’s profile and location.

A similar procedure is used to create reveals and this is shown in Image 9.

Upon exiting from the properties of the wall, the CMU layer, sweeps and reveals can easily be seen in a 3D view with the shading on. Note how the sweeps and reveals seamlessly continue from one wall face to another.  (see Image 10)

Image 11 shows the same wall with the addition of a parapet sweep.