Curtain Wall Tool - Intersection Priorities

[Szabolcs Miko]

Before the revamped Curtain Wall Tool was released in ARCHICAD 22, intersection priorities were taken in count when creating a Curtain Wall, but not used as a creative tool. Boundary, Mullion and Transom frames did have a priority, but these were fixed numbers.

With the release of AC22 arrived the flexibility to have 19 different intersection priorities for frames, which can be assigned to Frame Classes or to individual frames, regardless of it's class or type. A simple approach to design a curtain wall (or installation art on walls) is to have a pattern created, based on intersection priorities.

Setting up the Curtain Wall

In this example I set up the Curtain Wall by only using Boundary and Transom frames, set to the same Intersection Priority number by default.

This will be our grid for the pattern, which then can be modified in Edit mode creating a custom look using different priorities.

Intersections assigned to Frame Classes

You can create a new Frame Class in the Curtain Wall Settings dialog, these can be used in different CW elements in the project as well.

I created 3 frame classes identified by their intersection priority numbers. Assigning them to frames will result in a custom look, but I will be able to control the priority, profile and material of the class together.

• select the Curtain Wall and enter Edit mode
• select the frames to change and choose from the predefined classes

Intersections assigned to individual elements

Another method to make a priority based pattern is to select the frames and adjust the intersection based on the subelement, not it's frame class.

• select the element and enter Edit mode
• select the frames to have the same intersection priority and then adjust the values
• delete unwanted frames (this merges the panels as well)

I can use the slider on the Info Box or the one in the Sub-Element Settings to change it.