This is interesting and cool for entertainment, but it's extremely hard to picture using this as a replacement for an architect.
We're building an ADU right now and the floorplan design was a very small part of what our architect did. So much more of the value came from the relationships he has with the structural and geotechnical engineers we used as well as the relationship with our city building department.
This really strikes me as a product in search of a problem.
Maybe a homeowner could use this for initial planning before finding an architect to use, but at that point you're competing with pencil and paper.
I appreciate the feedback. They aren't perfect. The renders are just aethetic images that often rewrite the plan, the base plan that you can download doesn't include these. We are working on adding the generation for these objects directly into the base generation to fix these issues. They currently just serve as a way to get more context quickly so people can understand the floor plan better.
If you're someone looking for a schematic design level tool that can allow you to explore design for free then this will allow you to develop ideas and figure out a starting point to work off of.
We will continue to improve the model and build out more tooling for guiding it.
We had a bug with our furnishing generations that is now fixed, we are working on backfilling all of the old renders that had the issue. Hopefully this fixes most of the room rewriting that's happening.
im currently building a home. one of the biggest issues is FAR which is very much driven by local laws. are you intending on addressing that at some point ?
Thank you! After we get through building out the basic design tooling, we plan to get more into designing a specific plot of land and will look at adding zoning related contraints.
This is fun! I hadn't thought about how much possibility space there was in home layouts until now. Some layouts make a lot more sense than others.
I've thrown some weird setups at it like a high bedroom:bathroom ratio and it's doing a great job at distributing bathroom access between the bedrooms, and arranging the bedrooms around shared spaces.
Engineering would be awesome! We want to get to training the model on structural constraints. We will start with basic foundation drawing, but will get deeper as we have the bandwidth to do it.
We've had people design a house in the software and then recreate it in the sims. We also added .GLB file types because game designers were wanting to put houses in their video games.
Doesn't look like it. From their FAQ: "Drafted is focused on single-level floor plans today. Multi-story homes, second floors, and basements are in progress and expected to become available soon."
I'd love to see a two storey use case in the future! I have a few designs for a small plot of land in Toronto (2500 sqft lot) and would love to try and make alterations based on my zoning constraints.
This is interesting and cool for entertainment, but it's extremely hard to picture using this as a replacement for an architect.
We're building an ADU right now and the floorplan design was a very small part of what our architect did. So much more of the value came from the relationships he has with the structural and geotechnical engineers we used as well as the relationship with our city building department.
This really strikes me as a product in search of a problem.
Maybe a homeowner could use this for initial planning before finding an architect to use, but at that point you're competing with pencil and paper.
How much structural and geotechnical detail does an ADU need?
There is probably more money in this as entertainment than architecture. And less liability.
How many of us have made house plans at some point?
I just looked at the very first one featured on your website ("Sprawling Dark 5 Bed")[1]:
- A car parked in the garage perpendicular to the door and the other differently-sized car
- A bedroom missing a closet
- Attached bathrooms with multiple sinks
- An office with a weird entrance from a dead space from the garage
- External doors that open the wrong way (against fire code in most places)
- Closet doors opening inward
- Both doors of the top-left bathroom opens into the sinks (why two sinks?)
- The top-left bathroom has a weird dead space between the shower and bathtub (why both?)
- the random little floating feature in the middle of the open floorplan space doesn't make any structural or aesthetic sense
- The two bedrooms in the lower left with the weird bump-out for the windows that make no sense
- The window placement for many windows don't make sense and don't even line up with the 3D view of the house
- The hallway on the left that turns and goes to nowhere for no reason
- The additional random inaccessible dead spaces next to the bottom right bathroom
It took me just a few minutes to see this. I hope nobody ever builds a home based on these plans.
[1] https://cdn.drafted.ai/thumb/drafts/23025/generations/94729/...
Edited for formatting, to add a few points I missed, and to add a link to the image
I appreciate the feedback. They aren't perfect. The renders are just aethetic images that often rewrite the plan, the base plan that you can download doesn't include these. We are working on adding the generation for these objects directly into the base generation to fix these issues. They currently just serve as a way to get more context quickly so people can understand the floor plan better.
If you're someone looking for a schematic design level tool that can allow you to explore design for free then this will allow you to develop ideas and figure out a starting point to work off of.
We will continue to improve the model and build out more tooling for guiding it.
I try to avoid hating but that's pretty rough.
Also they only support single-story homes but that image includes a staircase
This is a lot of fun.
https://cdn.drafted.ai/thumb/drafts/27019/generations/98723/...
- off-bathroom conference room!
- side-by-side toilets
- garage inaccessible except via bathroom
it's engrossing!
Also most (but not all!) of the designs seem to omit laundry facilities. I wonder whether there's a pattern there.
Bidet?
We had a bug with our furnishing generations that is now fixed, we are working on backfilling all of the old renders that had the issue. Hopefully this fixes most of the room rewriting that's happening.
im currently building a home. one of the biggest issues is FAR which is very much driven by local laws. are you intending on addressing that at some point ?
looks great btw. congrats
Thank you! After we get through building out the basic design tooling, we plan to get more into designing a specific plot of land and will look at adding zoning related contraints.
This is fun! I hadn't thought about how much possibility space there was in home layouts until now. Some layouts make a lot more sense than others.
I've thrown some weird setups at it like a high bedroom:bathroom ratio and it's doing a great job at distributing bathroom access between the bedrooms, and arranging the bedrooms around shared spaces.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for trying it out :)
There's an insanely big probability space and everyone has very unique desires/preferences when designing.
I'm really excited to see what people come up with.
ADU's are extremely popular in California. Are you going to add support for designing ADU/garage conversions?
Right now we are focused on single-family ground-up design. There are people using it for ADUs, but it's not trained to do that well.
We plan to make the model better for ADU's after we get through multi-story houses :)
Going to give it a try! Would love to see an option for an engineering stamp for brace walls, hold downs, etc.
Let me know how it goes!
Engineering would be awesome! We want to get to training the model on structural constraints. We will start with basic foundation drawing, but will get deeper as we have the bandwidth to do it.
This is really cool!
First thing that came to mind is that I would use this for a sim city style video game
We've had people design a house in the software and then recreate it in the sims. We also added .GLB file types because game designers were wanting to put houses in their video games.
Do you support 2 story homes?
Doesn't look like it. From their FAQ: "Drafted is focused on single-level floor plans today. Multi-story homes, second floors, and basements are in progress and expected to become available soon."
I'd love to see a two storey use case in the future! I have a few designs for a small plot of land in Toronto (2500 sqft lot) and would love to try and make alterations based on my zoning constraints.
Yeah - we are working on adding multi-story in the next 2 months.
I'd love to have you try it :D
Zoning constraints will likely be another few months beyond multi-story.
Great product from a great team!
Thank you :)