Configurator: A Platform for Multifamily Residential Design and Customisation

Game technologies in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industries are currently utilised for a variety of analytical, and single author applications such as test fitting, simulated city fabric, and evaluation of feasible solution sets. Advances in materials and fabrication technologies, design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA), and industrialised construction of building components, continue to shift the housing paradigm from standardisation toward mass customisation. These recent developments are trending toward user focus, negotiated planning, and choice prioritisation in design, production planning, and manufacture. The authors’ research is motivated by game technologies’ suitability to negotiate problems facing integration of design customisation, user choice, and negotiated governance in supply chain integration and procurment pipeline. The paper presents the author’s research into decentralised multi-author decision making, co-authorship, contribution of digital experts, and incentivisation models. Game engine technology is outlined to deliver user-focused, participation-driven, mass-customised housing outcomes. A real-time online platform use case configurator and the corresponding digital tool-chain integration is presented and discussed. The multiplayer gameplay of such results in construction feasible customised housing developments. The footprint, unit mix, and spatial organisation of which, conventionally authored by an architect or developer, herein is authored by the participants aggregate decisions.