ENABLING CUSTOMER CHOICE IN HOUSING
Mass Customisation Solution for Prefabricated House
Manufacturers
RENEE PUUSEPP
1
, TAAVI LÕOKE
2
and KAIKO KIVI
3
1,2
Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian
1
renee.puusepp@artun.ee
2
taavi.looke@gmail.com
3
Creatomus Solutions, Estonian
3
kaiko@creatomus.com
Abstract. This paper presents a live and tested solution that enables
home buyers to choose and customise their future homes in a web
browser. It allows future owners and residents to configure and visualise
their home in 3D but also keep it affordable by displaying the construc-
tion costs back to users in real-time. The proposed solution is analysed
in the context of current housing market, excising web and BIM tech-
nologies and compared to currently available solutions. Additionally,
we have been tracking visitor behaviour by using web analytics and can
draw some conclusions about its performance.
Keywords. Mass customisation; housing; configurators; combina-
torics; web technologies.
1. Introduction
With the invention of new web technologies in general and with the maturing of
WebGL in particular it has become increasingly more feasible to build web appli-
cations that manipulate 3D geometry directly in web-browsers. This has created
new opportunities for bridging the gap between buyer’s needs to customise the de-
sign and efficient fabrication of new houses. The main value of this research lies
not within the novelty of the subject area, but within the flexibility of the software
architecture and suggested workflow as a generic solution for mass customising
houses. We have established a scalable concept and direct workflow from desk-
top 3D modelling software via parametric software add-ons into a web-friendly
format, allowing architects to present design options to the customer without the
need of face-to-face consultation.
We have created a working online solution and have been tracking the use
of our prototype solution using web analytics. Based on this we can draw some
P. Janssen, P. Loh, A. Raonic, M. A. Schnabel (eds.), Protocols, Flows and Glitches, Proceedings of the
22
nd
International Conference of the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia
(CAADRIA) 2017, 251-261. © 2017, The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research
in Asia (CAADRIA), Hong Kong.