The fact that Autodesk acquired Spacemaker is no longer news.
Let's think a little about why now, and why Autodesk. Autodesk is a company that has a wide variety of different products for all possible AEC directions, but they didn't have a Planning Configurator before the actual deal.
So why now? The answer is simple - such tools did not exist before; they began to appear along with the aggregation of data around cities.
The first planning configurators and their founded dates:
All these tools have something in common - they all work more or less with market context, site context, and planning context. We can also say that they are all 'market aware', 'site aware' and 'planning aware' (each to a different degree).
Let me explain further what this means (the sources below are mostly from the UK market):
Context | Consideration | Source / Tool |
Market Context | What are the residential values in the area? | Rightmove Sold Prices / Zoopla Sold Prices / Land Registry Sold Prices |
What are the commercial values in the area? | CoStar / Zoopla / Rightmove | |
When did the seller buy the site, and for how much? | Land Insight / Nimbus Maps / Zoopla / Rightmove | |
Site Context |
Where is the site? | Google Maps / Bing Maps / Urban Intelligence |
What is the nearest train station and how far is the walk? | Google Maps Directions Urban Intelligence (API request) |
|
What is the site boundary? | Land Registry Title Plan / Land Insight / Nimbus Maps / Testfit | |
How big is the site? | Promap / Land Insight / Nimbus Maps | |
Is the site vacant or occupied? | Google Maps / Urban Intelligence | |
Is there a long lease on the site? | Land Registry Leasehold Title Register / Nimbus Maps / Urban Intelligence |
|
What is the site currently used as/what was the last use? | Google Maps / Urban Intelligence | |
What can I get on the site (massing)? E.g. how many residential units | Promap / VU.City / Spacemaker / Archistar / Testfit / Prism-app / Kreo Modular | |
Measurement tools, e.g. distances to neighbouring dwellings | Promap / VU.City / Spacemaker / Archistar / Testfit | |
Planning Context |
Which borough is the site located in? | Land Insight / Nimbus Maps / Molior / Urban Intelligence |
What is the Public Transport Accessibility Level (PTAL)? | TFL website / Urban Intelligence | |
Does the site have any planning history? | Council’s Planning Portal / Land Insight / Nimbus Maps | |
Are there any recent nearby planning consents? | Land Insight / Nimbus Maps / Molior / Urban Intelligence | |
What is the site’s planning designation/allocation? | Council’s Proposals Map / Land Insight | |
Are any of the buildings locally listed or statutory listed? | Local Lists can be found on Council’s websites e.g. Statutory listings can be found on the Historical website | |
Does the site lie within a flood zone? | Government flooding website / Urban Intelligence | |
What is the Local CIL rate? | Council’s CIL Charging Schedule, e.g. Southwark | |
Do the site match sunlight/daylight and other requirements (view corridors)? Shading nearby properties? | VU.City / Spacemaker / Archistar | |
What about noise pollution? | VU.City / Spacemaker / Archistar | |
Building Context |
Mixed-use program (retail, offices, amenity), the target number of units, residential unit mix? | Testfit / Kreo Modular |
Construction method? Connection to the supply chain? Kit of parts? Pre-manufacturing? | Kreo Modular | |
MPG (Miles Per Gallon) and nZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Buildings) calculations | - | |
Precision manufactured housing (PHM) | Kreo Modular / Prism-app | |
Building regulations and design requirements (fire safety, span tables, loads, max number units per core, NIA/GIA) | Kreo Modular |
As you see, besides Planning Configurators themselves, there are a lot of other sources of data. The difference between Planning Configurators and other data sources is that the Planning Configurator produces massing models taking into account the data itself.
Clearly, it is pretty detailed massing: each unit / flat / apartment is equal to a polyhedron, the master plan has roads, green zones, etc. Also, the tool calculates different metrics around this particular site: developable site ratio, GFA (gross floor area), etc.
A couple of further comments about Planning Configurators:
Among all Planning Configurators, Testfit is the best from the side of building concept implementation. It is not about polyhedrons just stacked on top of each other. There is a building topology. Moreover, there is a mixed-use building topology. Thus Testfit is closer to Design Configurators than others. Look at this:
Over the years, the tools above have evolved and came to the optimal jelly mould.
Autodesk Revit was founded in 1997, and Autodesk bought Spacemaker at the end of 2020 because the time has come. 💁🏻♂️
However, even the most advanced Planning Configurators don’t cover Building Context (see the table above). In my opinion, to be a real Building Configurator, you need to work not only with topology but also with the kit of parts. Here are examples of such tools:
I can tell you a lot about Kreo Modular because my gang and I created this product. But I promised myself to be brief.
Kreo Modular automates building concepts. There is one key point: all the parts we use to configure a building within our platform need real prefab elements.
This is why we use the Lego comparison to explain better what we do and how it works, and this is why we have integration with .rvt and .ifc formats.
The Kreo Modular user flow goes through the map, too, although we don't use a lot of contexts (only daylight / sunlight calculations) to generate a masterplan:
We will not cover the market / site / planning context because others pretty well cover it (and it will be better and better). Thus we are looking for cooperation in this field with the data providers.
To make the difference between Planning Configurators and Design Configurators even more transparent, let’s describe the end-users of products:
Here is a simple industry landscape and a data flow for Planning Configurators and Design Configurators:
The world has not yet seen the configurator that takes into account market, site, planning, and building contexts.
Thanks for reading! ♥️
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