Launch HN: Drafted (YC P26) – Models for residential architecture

I'll bite. I'm currently building a new home based on plans of my own design, literally taking a lunch break now from hanging electrical gangboxes.

Do you have a background in homebuilding? Or have you ever built anything before?

Visualizing the design is one thing, but the feasibility must be considered -- and often vetted through engineer(s) -- from the initial design phase. And even then, despite the best planning attempts, inevitably there will be some issues that need to be addressed 'on-the-ground' during construction.

I think you may be onto something, and I believe LLM models could be capable of accounting for e.g. code restrictions, structural considerations, MEP conflicts, etc. Most of the 'knowledge' homebuilders accumulate is trainable and repeatable. And- at least in the US- most of it has been codified/standardized in the IRC. But still there are tons of little caveats & gotchas to consider. Maybe those details could be addressed directly in your system prompts?

Also curious: what kind of "other files" does Drafted export "for the rest of the pre-construction process"? IDK to what extent you've used any existing home design software, but Home Designer/Chief Architect are capable of creating a (detailed) BOM for the entire build, down to every member of framing lumber. If the user chooses to enter price information, they can also provide cost estimates. A seemingly obvious AI-assisted improvement would be gathering price data automatically- say from the Lowe's or similar Big Box Hardware nearest to the user's location. And ideally keeping it updated as lumber & other materials fluctuate in cost.

To me a really capable AI design software could also be capable of: - Basic electrical load calculations - HVAC/ Schedule D [ductwork] design - Structural considerations- e.g., recommending a joist plan: type/size/direction/spacing of floor joists + validating against IRC and/or joist manufacturer load tables - and a whole lot more

I have a number of other ideas in case you're interested. Feel free to send an email (in profile).

PS- are you familiar with BIM software (like AutoDesk Revvit)? There a lot of 3D modeling capabilities you could borrow that go way beyond floor plans and aesthetic architectural considerations.

There is probably more money in this as entertainment than architecture. And less liability.

How many of us have made house plans at some point?

What happened to kit homes and plan books? Rather that bring down the cost of custom design, can we bring down the cost of partially pre-fabricated, modern code-compliant homes that still resemble something traditional (not a shipping container home)?

That said, I think this is neat because I’m buying a condo and knowing what’s even possible (physically, allowed by code, etc) seems more art than science. Getting answers usually involves bringing someone on-site, and almost nothing can be DIY’d anymore (either due to permits, HOA, complexity, etc)

I've looked at a few dozen of the designs featured on the front page, and most of them don't make sense. What is the purpose of this?

This is fun! I hadn't thought about how much possibility space there was in home layouts until now. Some layouts make a lot more sense than others.

I've thrown some weird setups at it like a high bedroom:bathroom ratio and it's doing a great job at distributing bathroom access between the bedrooms, and arranging the bedrooms around shared spaces.

Thanks for sharing.

I just looked at the very first one featured on your website ("Sprawling Dark 5 Bed")[1]:

- A car parked in the garage perpendicular to the door and the other differently-sized car

- A bedroom missing a closet

- Attached bathrooms with multiple sinks

- An office with a weird entrance from a dead space from the garage

- External doors that open the wrong way (against fire code in most places)

- Closet doors opening inward

- Both doors of the top-left bathroom opens into the sinks (why two sinks?)

- The top-left bathroom has a weird dead space between the shower and bathtub (why both?)

- the random little floating feature in the middle of the open floorplan space doesn't make any structural or aesthetic sense

- The two bedrooms in the lower left with the weird bump-out for the windows that make no sense

- The window placement for many windows don't make sense and don't even line up with the 3D view of the house

- The hallway on the left that turns and goes to nowhere for no reason

- The additional random inaccessible dead spaces next to the bottom right bathroom

It took me just a few minutes to see this. I hope nobody ever builds a home based on these plans.

[1] https://cdn.drafted.ai/thumb/drafts/23025/generations/94729/...

Edited for formatting, to add a few points I missed, and to add a link to the image

im currently building a home. one of the biggest issues is FAR which is very much driven by local laws. are you intending on addressing that at some point ?

looks great btw. congrats

I do a lot of work in the AEC space. This is an interesting idea but I don't find the results very compelling. There are huge houseplan catalogs out there full of mediocre plans. I'm guessing this is trained on that sort of data as both the floorplans and the elevations look more like what you would get from those catalogs, and not what you would get from hiring an architect.

This is interesting and cool for entertainment, but it's extremely hard to picture using this as a replacement for an architect.

We're building an ADU right now and the floorplan design was a very small part of what our architect did. So much more of the value came from the relationships he has with the structural and geotechnical engineers we used as well as the relationship with our city building department.

This really strikes me as a product in search of a problem.

Maybe a homeowner could use this for initial planning before finding an architect to use, but at that point you're competing with pencil and paper.

ADU's are extremely popular in California. Are you going to add support for designing ADU/garage conversions?

I’ve build something similar but bottom up instead of top down. Happy to meet and share insights. Demo: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DauZYdsUQ1g

This is a really interesting product and the demos look really good too! I was just wondering whether or not there has been any plans of implementing a chat feature into Drafted. Looking to learn more about what you guys are building.

Im curious, where did you get all the training data? Actual blueprints? Or it the training data pictures of homes? Or a mix?

Does this allow for also doing exterior work ?

Is there something similar to this which lets you visualize floor plans from listed homes when you are house hunting?

Why do all the plans on the homepage have hip roofs?

Going to give it a try! Would love to see an option for an engineering stamp for brace walls, hold downs, etc.

As others have mentioned, building custom homes is the last place I'd use AI.

But if you're considering a pivot, interior design would be a great direction!

Given the space and furniture I have or could buy, what are my alternatives for flow and light and usability? What if energy or allergens are an issue?

This could engage users and has natural add-on's for buying things that would help monetize with price discrimination. End-users could be happy to explore, but you might have more features for designers.

You could fine-tune based on all the home-decorating videos and materials, add MCP for physical models (layout/positioning, environment), and use video models for ingesting current and visualizing results.

I couldn't believe all the negative feedback, so I took a good look on the homepage too. Yeah, it's all AI slop, only it's funded by YC. Honestly, for me, I don't see myself using this. I might as well start from a 2d sketch on my notebook for some ideas and wire up Claude with blender. I think an average user might just ask ChatGPT or Gemini to give them some ideas. This is one of those products where you might try it out, but there is no recurring model here. Home building by itself isn't a recurring exercise, so not really sure. It could possibly work as a Pinterest of sort for housing plans, but even then, I could very well use Pinterest for this as it already has a great collection of housing plan ideas. For example:

https://pinterest.com/nairveena20/houseplans/

This is really cool!

First thing that came to mind is that I would use this for a sim city style video game

How well could this work for other zones? like not in USA?

This looks awesome for showing an architect what you have in mind. I would not try to replace one though.

Do you support 2 story homes?

Great product from a great team!