As far back as in 2015 in the article, “Why Isn’t There a Smarter BIM Tool for Building Design, Yet?,” I had bemoaned the lack of a smart conceptual design tool for architecture, asking:
Is there nothing else we can do to make the process of conceptualizing a building smarter, more intuitive, more fun? Why can’t we simply be able to sketch out a building design — say a floor plan or a façade — and automatically get a fully detailed, structurally sound, constructable BIM without actually having to model every bit of it? Is this too much to ask for?
Well, it’s been 7 years, but we finally have the start of something like this. It is the new Spaces iPad app, developed by a startup company, Cerulean Labs.