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Playground · Residential

Apartment Design Studio

Six chapters take one parcel from planning envelope to a development feasibility, and every decision moves the same model. Choose a site and a built form, and the massing sets out coverage, deep soil and communal open space against the envelope. The typical level packs for real, cores, corridors, homes, rooms, balconies and aspect, reconciled to your mix. Eighteen Apartment Design Guidelines checks measure the drawn geometry clause by clause, a NatHERS and BESS-style pass rates orientation, ventilation and rooftop solar, and the final chapter prices every home to run the cost plan, margin on cost, residual land value and a sensitivity tornado. Goal seek seeks a margin, a homes count or a compliance target across the whole design once the massing is committed, the Hey GIRIH wizard can walk the journey and patch decisions by voice or chat, and the finale exports a development board pack.

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What this demonstrates

Generative ADG feasibility + margin-on-cost goal seeking. The same generative planning, ADG compliance and development feasibility architecture we build for build-to-sell apartment developers, encoded here with distilled Victorian planning controls and cost benchmarks.

Site cap
·
GFA
·
Homes
·
ADG score
·
NatHERS
·
Margin
·

Each headline number unlocks when its chapter is committed. Benchmark assumptions, editable throughout.

Chapter 1 · Site & Planning
Which parcel is this, and who are the homes written for?

Goal seek unlocks once chapter 2 commits: state a business goal and the engine redesigns the scheme toward it, live in the viewer.

Chapter 1 of 6

Site & Planning

Which parcel is this, and who are the homes written for?

Choose the site

Three benchmarked Melbourne parcels. Every number downstream is measured on the one you pick.

Site

A 0.3 ha site in a structure-planned station precinct with a rail edge to manage.

Site area
2,976 m²
Frontage x depth
48 x 62 m
Height control
12 levels
Land cost
$11.5m
Parking ratio
0.7 / home
Base sale rate
$10,300 / m²

Rail and main-road edge: the facade carries an acoustic treatment cost and the sale rate takes a discount on the exposed frontage.

Planning controls

Boundary controls the massing engine sets out inside.

Front setback
4 m
Side setback
3 m
Rear setback
5 m
Coverage cap
60%
Deep soil min
7%
Building depth
18 m max

Laneway parcels build to their side boundaries on party walls, so the side control does not apply there and no side windows are counted.

Buyer profile

Who the homes are written for. It weights the mix the packer is asked to hit and the rate the feasibility earns.

Market

Two beds carry the scheme. Buyers walk the plan, so room dimensions and storage are worth more than headline count.

Home typeDemandTarget areaRate factor
Studio0.40x40 m²1.07x
1 Bed0.90x55 m²1.03x
2 Bed1.15x78 m²1.00x
3 Bed1.00x104 m²0.96x

Starting point

Where the untuned scheme sits on this parcel before any design decision is committed.

Homes
77
GFA
7,378 m²
Site coverage
31.0%

Demonstration only. Results are indicative and should not be relied upon for planning, regulatory, building, legal or design decisions. Professional review is required.

Apartment Design Guidelines for Victoria

Where this data comes from

Illustrative pipeline for a production deployment

Planning controls per parcel

Boundary dimensions, storey limits, front, side and rear setbacks, site coverage and deep soil minima, encoded per site as a machine-readable envelope

Apartment design standards

Apartment Design Guidelines for Victoria turned into measurable criteria: building depth, unit and room minima, balcony dimensions, dual aspect share, corridor runs and homes per core

Cost and sales benchmarks

Construction rates per square metre of GFA by built form, high-rise uplift, basement cost per space, consultant, contingency and statutory shares, debt assumptions and base sale rates by parcel

Sustainability benchmarks

NatHERS and BESS-style rating proxies driven by orientation, cross ventilation and form compactness, plus an upfront embodied carbon baseline and rooftop PV yields

Parametric apartment feasibility engine

  1. 1Fit the chosen built form inside the planning envelope and measure coverage, deep soil and communal open space
  2. 2Pack the typical level for real: cores, corridors, homes, rooms, balconies and aspect, with the brief mix reconciled onto the slots that fit
  3. 3Test eighteen ADG-derived checks against the drawn geometry and report what is measured against what is required
  4. 4Rate the scheme: NatHERS proxy, cross ventilation, solar access, BESS composite and upfront carbon
  5. 5Price every home on its own aspect, level and orientation, then run the cost plan, finance, margin on cost, residual land value and the sensitivity tornado

Output

Development board pack

Decision ledger, massing comparison, typical level drawing, ADG register, performance sheet, cost waterfall, sensitivity and 3D captures assembled from one parametric model

This browser demo runs distilled benchmark assumptions; client deployments encode the actual planning controls, cost plan and unit standards for the real project and land results in Revit, IFC or the client's own platform.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How these demos relate to the systems we build for clients.

What does this studio actually demonstrate?

One parametric model carrying a build-to-sell apartment scheme, chapter by chapter. The massing engine fits the chosen built form inside the planning envelope, then the typical level is packed for real: sized cores, corridors, homes, rooms, balconies and aspect, with the brief mix reconciled onto the slots that actually fit rather than assumed. Eighteen Apartment Design Guidelines checks measure that drawn geometry directly, a sustainability pass rates NatHERS and BESS-style performance from orientation and form, and the feasibility chapter prices every home on its own aspect and level to close the loop on margin on cost. Change the built form in chapter two and the margin in chapter six moves.

Which rules is the design checked against?

An indicative distillation of the Apartment Design Guidelines for Victoria: building depth, unit and room minima, dual aspect share, balcony area and dimensions, homes per core, corridor run, communal open space, deep soil, site coverage, services, parking and entry activation, among others. Every check reports what was measured against what the guideline requires, so a warning is traceable to a clause. Client deployments encode the full standards plus the site's specific planning controls.

How does goal seek reach a target, and what stays fixed?

It searches the movable design variables, built form, levels, mix weights, ground use and the sustainability settings, for the closest scheme that clears a stated target: a margin on cost, a homes count with margin held, a zero-fail ADG register, or a premium market pivot. The site and its planning controls hold throughout, and every run reports what changed and the achieved result against the target. The Hey GIRIH wizard can launch the same presets conversationally.

Is this meant to replace a developer's design and feasibility team?

No, it is an educational demonstration of GIRIH X technology. Its value is speed at feasibility: test dozens of massing, mix and performance options in minutes with a live compliance and margin readout, then take the shortlist and its board pack into design development with your architects, planners and quantity surveyors.

Want this for your products?

Everything in the Playground is built with the same stack we deploy for clients: configurators driven by real product masters, planners connected to BIM data, and AR experiences served straight from the product catalogue.

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