In order to do something new in building design industry we need to understand the the basic process of early architecture design.
In most cases it all begins with customer needs; target area, spaces needed, preliminary budget, demands for spaces etc.
With this information a preliminary sketch is made. It may include space plan, possibly sections and facades. There’s also some figures calculated from the plans, most importantly gross and net areas.
By reviewing customers comments and wishes the plan is changed as needed. This process can be long and have multiple rounds.
When the plan is ready - or in some cases at the same time the plans are analyzed with cost, energy and other. In rare cases these figures affect the plan itself. It’s good to keep in mind that in many projects only the preliminary plan is made!
But wouldn’t it be great that when you’re sketching a building, you could make BIM-based analysis from it? It’s certainly possible, but making a good BIM is hard. With current tools you have to make it part by part: walls, spaces, slabs, roofs etc. This brings the problem that in managing changes for the plans is complicated. Also keeping multiple versions of the plan is tricky and requires great amount of self discipline. In addition to that most of figures needed are still calculated by hand or separate objects: gross areas, rental areas, gross volume etc.
Also it’s a fact that nearly 90% of the cost of the building are determined by early stage design decisions not mentioning the life-cycle costs. So modeling can certainly be worth the effort!
When talking about the tools we use to make these models, we often forget that there has been a huge change in work habits within 10 to 20 years. In 80’s and 90’s transform was from hand drawing to computer drawing. On the side of drawing came 3D-modeling and during 2000’s started the rise of building information modeling, BIM, which is still growing and developing. Problem is that basically all professional software tools are still based on phase 1: simulating drawing to the paper. It is clear that BIM needs new tools that are created for modeling and for modern hardware as well.
TouchDesign is beginning of something new in architecture design tools. It is the world’s first BIM sketch tool. Modeling through spaces utilizes the benefits of touch screen. Creating, connecting and modifying the spaces is easy like handling pieces of paper on the table. There’s no slow drawing of small and unnecessary building elements because other structures (walls and slabs etc.) will be created automatically around spaces. As in early stage, TouchDesign already features real time area calculations - a thing that no other design software currently does. TouchDesign will also feature a powerful versioning feature. This bring possibility to create more alternative designs faster in comparable format. The data required for cost estimation is created automatically. Data storage in Cloud and analysis through open APIs.
After a few years now developing this kind of simple app it has came clear that getting new professional tools to markets is very hard. This need more co-working with different companies that make design tools and analyzing software. This is where we need all the connections possible!
