Revit Curtain Wall is a very useful tool, but lacks a proper implementation of truly curved Curtain Panels and Curtain Wall Mullions. Such functionality is necessary not only for curved glazing, which in real life is often avoided because of high costs, but also for elevation cladding in cases like the one shown below.
Building with curved elevation cladding panels
Revit allows using Basic Walls as Curtain Panels, what is a step towards the right solution because Basic Walls are curved when used as Curtain Panels in curved portions of Curtain Walls. The remaining issue is to have also curved mullions (the framework of our elevation cladding system), but it is only necessary for horizontal mullions as vertical mullions can remain straight. To achieve curved horizontal mullions we will use the Sweep functionality of Basic Walls.
Wall Sweep defined in the Edit Assembly window of Basic Wall
Sweeps are horizontal protrusions following the paths of Basic Walls, so they can serve as mullions when defined properly.
Settings of a Wall Sweep to be used as a mullion
Type properties of a Curtain Wall with a Basic Wall used as a Curtain Panel
To define a mullion as a Wall Sweep one needs a Sweep Profile component family, which serves as the Mullion profile, and the proper Distance and Offset settings of the Wall Sweep. A Basic Wall with such a Wall Sweep can then be used as a Curtain Panel of a Curtain Wall as shown on the left.
The 3D view and plan of the resulting curved elevation cladding modelled as Curtain Wall is shown below.
Curved elevation cladding modelled as Curtain Wall – 3D view and plan