| I'll bite. I'm currently building a new home based on plans of my own design, literally taking a lunch break now from hanging electrical gangboxes. Do you have a background in homebuilding? Or have you ever built anything before? Visualizing the design is one thing, but the feasibility must be considered -- and often vetted through engineer(s) -- from the initial design phase. And even then, despite the best planning attempts, inevitably there will be some issues that need to be addressed 'on-the-ground' during construction. I think you may be onto something, and I believe LLM models could be capable of accounting for e.g. code restrictions, structural considerations, MEP conflicts, etc. Most of the 'knowledge' homebuilders accumulate is trainable and repeatable. And- at least in the US- most of it has been codified/standardized in the IRC. But still there are tons of little caveats & gotchas to consider. Maybe those details could be addressed directly in your system prompts? Also curious: what kind of "other files" does Drafted export "for the rest of the pre-construction process"? IDK to what extent you've used any existing home design software, but Home Designer/Chief Architect are capable of creating a (detailed) BOM for the entire build, down to every member of framing lumber. If the user chooses to enter price information, they can also provide cost estimates. A seemingly obvious AI-assisted improvement would be gathering price data automatically- say from the Lowe's or similar Big Box Hardware nearest to the user's location. And ideally keeping it updated as lumber & other materials fluctuate in cost. To me a really capable AI design software could also be capable of:
- Basic electrical load calculations
- HVAC/ Schedule D [ductwork] design
- Structural considerations- e.g., recommending a joist plan: type/size/direction/spacing of floor joists + validating against IRC and/or joist manufacturer load tables
- and a whole lot more I have a number of other ideas in case you're interested. Feel free to send an email (in profile). PS- are you familiar with BIM software (like AutoDesk Revvit)? There a lot of 3D modeling capabilities you could borrow that go way beyond floor plans and aesthetic architectural considerations. |
I started and ran a tech-enabled pre-construction service for ~6 years and grew up in a homebuilding family.
Codes, structural, MEP, and pricing are definitely huge pieces of the buildability puzzle. These are layers we plan to train into the model. Right now we are focused on the schematic level ideation process. So figuring out the flow and shape that can often a take a while to stabilize in the architectural design process.
Once we have this tooling built out, we will add more layers of context that helps make better buildability and cost decisions.
Super familiar with other BIM software. Chief Architect is a more residentially opinionated one. We are hoping to bridge the gap between these high-skill bar softwares and anyone wanting to design. Their capabilities and data structures are helpful robust usability. Just a bit complicated for most people. We are working on more interopability, so people can continue in whatever workflow while we are focused on the schematic level design phase (currently have DXF, IFC, GLB, and PDF exporting).
I'll shoot you an email :)