Schematic design · for U.S. residential

The first
draft of every
home —
in 90 seconds.

ADU developers and custom-home builders waste 2–6 weeks and $4–12K per project on the first sketch — the part where 80% of plans are still rejected. ArchitectAI generates a code-aware, dimensioned schematic from a brief. Iterate before you ever pay an architect.

Today: schematic design
2–6 wks · $4–12K
With ArchitectAI
~90 sec · free to try
Hand-off
DXF · PDF · SVG
generation · plan_v0024scale 1:96 · sheet a-101
brief ›3 bed modern farmhouse, 1,840 sf, lot 60×120
28' - 0"28' - 0"42' - 0"Bedroom 112'×11'Primary14'×13'Kitchen14'×9'Living16'×14'DiningBA-1PWDN
1,840 sf · 3 bd · 2 bacode · IRC 2021 ✓
/ 01 — the problem

Schematic design is the bottleneck of every home built in America.
It shouldn't be.

/ TIME
2–6 weeks

Between brief and first usable sketch — assuming the architect responds. ADU and custom builders pay this tax on every single project.

/ COST
$4–12K

Just for schematic design. Sunk cost if the lot doesn't pencil. Builders eat this on every dead project.

/ THROW-AWAY
~80%

Of first-pass sketches get scrapped or heavily redrawn. The work is iteration — but no one can afford to iterate at human speed.

Meanwhile, every state has legalized ADUs. Inventory is at a 40-year low. The country needs faster homes. The first 5% of every project is what's slowing us down.

/ 02 — how it works

Five agents.
One drawing.

01
intake

Brief

Plain language: "60×120 lot in Austin, family of 4, two-car, $450K cap." Parser maps narrative to spatial constraints + zoning lookup.

02
program

Program

Determines room count, adjacency graph, square-foot allocations. Honors locked rooms and must-keep adjacencies if you specify them.

03
solver

Layout

Constraint-based packing onto the lot envelope. Iterates with daylight, egress, and circulation as cost terms.

04
code

Code check

Cross-references IRC 2021 + state amendments. Failed checks block export. Passing rules surface as annotations on the drawing.

05
draft

Hand-off

Dimensioned plan with door swings, fixtures, room schedule, title block. Export DXF for your architect, PDF for your contractor.

/ 03 — who it's for

We're starting with
ADU developers.

Granny-flat operators run on volume — 12 to 40 builds a year, on tight margins, pre-existing site templates. They feel the schematic-design tax most acutely. Once we own that wedge, we expand into custom builders, then small-multifamily.

/ NOW

ADU developers

~150K permits/yr in CA, OR, WA. Highly templated. Repeat customer.

/ NEXT

Custom-home builders

~55K starts/yr by small builders. Bespoke briefs, longer cycle, higher AOV.

/ LATER

Small multifamily

Duplexes / fourplexes. Zoning reform unlocking inventory. Higher complexity.

/ 04 — why it's defensible

A renderer is a toy.
The code engine is the moat.

Anyone can prompt a model to draw a floor plan. The hard part — the part that makes a plan actually buildable — is encoding building code as a constraint set the solver respects. We're 18 months into compiling it.

  • R310.1Emergency escape & rescue opening — every sleeping room.enforced
  • R311.7Stair geometry — 7-3/4″ rise, 10″ tread minimum.enforced
  • R303.1Habitable rooms — natural light ≥ 8% of floor area.enforced
  • R314Smoke alarm — every bedroom and adjacent hall.enforced
  • R315Carbon monoxide alarm — outside each sleeping area.enforced
  • R305Ceiling height — habitable spaces ≥ 7'-0".enforced
  • R311.6Hallway width — minimum 36″ clear.enforced
/ scope today

IRC 2021 base + the four most-adopted state amendments (CA, FL, NY, TX). Each rule is a constraint, not a prompt — failed checks block export.

jurisdictions live
IRC 2021CRC 2022 · CAFBC R 2023 · FLNYS R 2020TX local+ WA, OR, CO · Q3
/ 05 — why now

Three forces collided
in the last 24 months.

/ 01

Zoning reform

49 states have legalized ADUs or upzoned single-family lots since 2021. Inventory unlocked, demand uncapped.

/ 02

Architect shortage

AIA reports a 14% gap in licensed residential architects. Firms reject small briefs. Builders need self-serve tooling.

/ 03

Foundation models

Multi-step agentic reasoning over CAD geometry was impossible 18 months ago. Now it's a weekend prototype + a year of code-rule encoding.

/ 07 — founder
NS
Nithin Sarva
Founder · Engineer

I watched my parents try to build an ADU in their backyard. Three architects ghosted them. The fourth charged $9,400 for sketches that ignored the setback. I built ArchitectAI because the first 5% of a project shouldn't be the part that kills it.

Background
ML / systems engineer
Building since
Late 2024
Where
Open-source · solo
/ 08 — questions

The hard
questions.

Is this a replacement for architects?+
No. ArchitectAI produces schematic-quality drawings — the same fidelity a human would hand a client at the "first sketches" stage. Construction documents still require an architect of record. Our customers are using us to compress the iteration loop before they hire one.
How is this different from a generative-image tool?+
Image models hallucinate walls. They produce renderings, not drawings. We solve geometry as a constraint problem and emit dimensioned vector output — DXF that opens cleanly in CAD, with layered walls, doors, fixtures, and dimensions.
What's the moat against a bigger model showing up?+
Building-code rules encoded as solver constraints. IRC 2021 plus state amendments is ~3,000 enforceable rules. Each one is engineering work, not a prompt. We're 18 months in.
How will you make money?+
Per-project pricing for ADU developers and small builders ($199–499/plan), with a Pro tier ($99/mo) for unlimited generations and DXF export. Eventually a team plan for builders managing project pipelines.
Is the code-checking actually trustworthy?+
Today: yes for the rules listed above. We block export on failure rather than silently passing. We're conservative — anything ambiguous gets flagged for an architect, not auto-approved.
What happens to my brief and plans?+
Stored against your account, not used for training. Open-sourcing the constraint engine on the roadmap.
/ try it now

Bring a brief.
Leave with a plan.

Free. No signup. Bring a lot dimension and a household — get a dimensioned schematic and a code report you can hand to your architect.