Generative Buildings are live in Arcol

The first generative modeller that puts you in full control of the building start to finish.

We built generative buildings with the goal of giving teams leverage in design. Our aim was not to just add generative as a feature but put users in complete control through the entire project.

Most generative tools are “you get what you get” and you’re either stuck or its painful to refine. Desginers are left choosing between speed or design - we think they can have both. Explore more options, maintain complete design control.

Generative buildings are one of the most requested capabilities in Arcol's history, and here is exactly what it does.

What Generative Buildings does

Generative Buildings generates the interior of your building from the parameters you already know:

• Unit depth, which drives unit widths against your assigned square footages

• Area types, sizes, and mix, using the same UI you already use for calculated units

• Corridor width, with corridors running to the exterior of the building

• Stairs and elevators, placed as part of the generated circulation

From those inputs, Arcol generates units, corridors, and cores across your building. Arcol runs generations behind the scenes and surfaces the best match against your targets, and you can adjust the unit mix in real time while generation runs and watch the layout respond.

Everything it places, you can edit

Part of what makes Arcol’s Generative Buildings different is every unit, corridor, and core the generator places is a real, editable object in your Arcol model.

If a corner condition is wrong, drag it and the surrounding areas reshuffle to accommodate. If the generated scheme is close but not quite right, tweak the parameters and regenerate.

Infusing design into generative

When you’re happy with your layout you can simply bake it and keep designing manually. The generation can act as your first pass but you remain in control of the final answer.

Live in the rest of your workflow

Because generation happens inside Arcol, the generated building behaves like everything else in your model. Your metrics update from it. Your boards and presentations pull from it. There's no export step, no re-drawing a generated result into your working file, and no re-stitching a presentation after every revision.

Getting started

Generative Buildings is live in Arcol today. Open a project, set your unit parameters, and generate. If you're new to Arcol, you can sign up at app.arcol.io and try it on your own massing.