An AI floor plan starts with the apartments you need

The client’s apartment mix gives an AI floor plan a job. Autodesk says Building Layout Explorer in Forma Site Design can generate and compare multifamily layouts against that mix: the types and numbers of homes a project seeks.[2]

The experimental June launch opened to commercial users with US-stored data. Autodesk describes models trained on aggregated 3D architecture, engineering and construction data, informed by a building’s overall form, type and structural material.[1]

Count the space before judging the picture

Consider a deliberately simplified example, not a building proposal or a test of Forma. A floor has 1,000 square metres. Reserve 180 for corridors, stairs, lifts and other shared requirements, leaving 820 for apartments. We choose illustrative apartment sizes of 35 and 60 square metres; these are assumptions, not legal minima.

Ten smaller apartments and eight larger ones require 830 square metres: 10 × 35 + 8 × 60. The brief is already ten square metres over budget. Eight smaller apartments and nine larger ones require exactly 820: 8 × 35 + 9 × 60. That alternative fits the arithmetic but supplies 17 homes instead of 18.

The choice has become explicit. A developer seeking more homes and a client seeking more larger homes are asking different questions of the same floor. Meeting an area total still leaves the geometry to solve: a sum does not show where a corridor connects or whether every apartment can occupy a workable shape.

A brief can change while the design develops

The RIBA Plan of Work 2020 separates concept design, spatial coordination and technical design. During concept design, the project brief remains open to agreed changes. Spatial coordination brings architectural and engineering information together; technical design produces the information needed for manufacture and construction. The framework describes successive decisions, not interchangeable drawings.[3]

Keep the requested mix beside each alternative. Record changes to unit count, size and shared space, so the drawing’s choices are visible.

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