The UK has set an ambitious goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which requires a drastic reduction in the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of its buildings. However, the retrofitting of ageing housing stock, which accounts for about 80% of existing buildings, is progressing too slowly and inefficiently, hindering the UK’s Net Zero goal.
One of the main challenges in retrofitting ageing housing stock is the supply-side shortage in design and construction. Architects play a pivotal role in providing the blueprint for construction and guiding homeowners about the costs and benefits of retrofitting. However, their design services are often expensive, time-consuming, and not scalable to meet the demand of millions of homes that need retrofitting. Moreover, current architectural practice relies heavily on manual and subjective methods, which can result in errors, inconsistencies, and low-quality outcomes.
New approaches are needed to accelerate home retrofit and reduce carbon emissions in the UK, which would enable faster, cheaper, and a more customized way to retrofit aging housing stock.
The technology relies on generative AI, utilizing a case-based reasoning system with three key components. The first component houses a database of exemplary designs and their contextual applications. Innovative encoding methods capture existing designs’ topology, geometry, and site context. The second component comprises a search and match algorithm with invented metrics for site and design topology comparisons, enabling searches in the database to identify suitable precedents for new sites. The third component is an optimization algorithm that generates geometric layouts based on the matched design’s topology.
AI generates outline geometries to meet the design needs, providing estimates for energy consumption, photovoltaic output, and construction costs and so on. Informed by these estimates, homeowners can make key decisions without prolonged architect consultations.
It can answer homeowners’ initial questions such as “What extension can I build for my home?” with better-informed clients, architects can work more productively.
We are looking for partners to accelerate the development of this solution both technical and commerically, including early-adopters who see the possibilities for Planarific to transform their product offerings.
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