Glossary. Architecture, BIM, planning and interior design — in plain terms.

Linking the model to the construction programme, so a walkthrough shows what should be built by any given week — not just what the finished building looks like. We use it to catch sequencing conflicts, like formwork planned before the crane access it depends on is actually free.

4D scheduling plus live cost — quantities pulled straight from the model tied to the programme, so a schedule slip or a design change shows its cost impact immediately rather than after the next round of manual takeoff. Genuinely useful on larger, phased projects; often more overhead than value on a single residential commission.

A single wall within a room finished or coloured differently from the others, used to add visual interest or highlight a focal point without committing the whole space to a bold choice. Effective when it supports the room's existing material palette; arbitrary when picked in isolation from everything else in the space.

Materials and design choices — soft furnishings, acoustic panels, ceiling treatments — used to control sound reflection and reverberation within a space, distinct from soundproofing between spaces. It matters more than most clients expect in double-height or hard-surfaced rooms, where an otherwise beautiful space can be genuinely unpleasant to talk in.

Redesigning an existing building for a new function rather than demolishing and starting over — a residence converted to offices, an old warehouse into a studio. It demands reading the existing structure honestly, often via scan-to-BIM, before committing to a new layout, since what's actually load-bearing rarely matches the original drawings.

The final drawing set corrected to match what was actually constructed, including every site change a contractor made that never went back through us as a formal revision. Distinct from the BIM as-built model — on smaller projects without full BIM delivery, this is often just the marked-up construction documents, updated after handover.

The model corrected to match what was actually constructed — every site variation, every contractor substitution — rather than what was originally designed. Handed over at project close so a client's facilities team, or the next architect who touches the building, is working from reality instead of the last approved drawing set.

A tall, usually skylit interior void running through multiple floors, used to bring daylight deep into a building's core and give it a shared central volume. It does real work for daylighting and passive ventilation, but it also removes floor area on every level it passes through, which is a genuine tradeoff on a tight urban plot.

A small file format for flagging a coordination issue — a clash, a query, a comment pinned to a specific point in the model — and passing it between different BIM software without exporting the whole model. It's how a clash found in Navisworks gets back to the Revit author with the exact viewpoint and note attached.

The document that turns 'we'll do BIM' into something enforceable — model authoring software, LOD by stage, file-naming, who owns clash resolution, and the CDE structure everyone will actually use. Agreed before modelling starts, not written retroactively to match whatever happened. Without one, every consultant defaults to their own convention and nothing federates cleanly.

A scale describing how collaborative BIM practice actually is on a project — from unmanaged CAD, through managed 3D models kept in isolated silos, to fully integrated, web-enabled, ISO 19650-compliant collaboration. Most local projects we see sit between Level 1 and Level 2; genuinely Level 3 work is still rare here.

A single modelled component — a door, a light fitting, a structural column — carrying both its geometry and its data: manufacturer, dimensions, fire rating, cost code. A generic placeholder object gets swapped for the real manufacturer's object once a product is actually specified, so the schedule stays accurate rather than aspirational.

Incorporating natural elements — daylight, plants, natural materials, views to outdoors — into interior design to improve occupant wellbeing, grounded in real, measurable effects on mood and productivity rather than decorative greenery for its own sake. It works best planned alongside the lighting plan and fenestration, not added as an afterthought.

Previously developed land — often ex-industrial — being considered for redevelopment, which typically carries extra due diligence for soil contamination, existing foundations, or utility conflicts that a clean greenfield site doesn't. Feasibility studies on brownfield sites budget time and cost for that investigation upfront rather than discovering it mid-construction.

The set of legally binding construction and safety rules — structural, fire, accessibility, services — a design must meet regardless of the client's preferences. We design to code from Schematic Design onward rather than retrofitting compliance later, since a non-compliant layout usually can't be patched without redesigning the plan.

Everything separating conditioned interior space from the outside — walls, roof, windows, insulation — considered together as the system controlling heat gain, moisture and energy performance, not just as separate finished surfaces. A well-designed envelope does real thermal work; a poorly detailed one leaks heat regardless of how good the HVAC design is.

The maximum permitted vertical extent of a building, measured per local byelaw (usually plinth to parapet or roof), set alongside FAR and setbacks by the development authority. It directly caps the number of floors a plot can support, so it's checked in the same early feasibility pass as FAR — not discovered at permit-set stage.

The boundary set back from the plot edge or road beyond which construction may not project, distinct from the property line itself — effectively the setback made into an enforceable drawn line on the site plan. Balconies and cantilevers are frequently the elements that test whether a design actually respects it.

A structural element — a slab, balcony or beam — projecting outward and supported only at one end, carrying load without a column underneath its outer edge. Visually dramatic when used well, but it shifts real structural cost into the beam and foundation behind it; a cantilever is never actually free of support, just of a visible one.

The actual usable floor area inside a unit, measured wall-to-wall excluding the wall thickness itself — the number that matters most to a client asking 'how much space do I actually get,' as opposed to gross floor area, which authorities use for FAR calculations and always reads larger.

The route people actually walk through a space to get from one point to another, planned with real width and clearance rather than assumed to fit around whatever furniture ends up placed. Poor circulation is one of the most common reasons a well-finished interior still feels cramped or awkward to live in.

Running every discipline's model together to catch what doesn't actually fit — a duct through a beam, a column inside a stairwell — before it's a problem on site rather than a conversation with a contractor holding a tape measure. We run it iteratively through Design Development, not once at the end when every clash is expensive to fix.

A structured spreadsheet format for handing over asset data — equipment, warranties, maintenance schedules — pulled out of the model at handover so a facilities team can run the building without opening BIM software. It's only as good as the data entered against each object through the project, which is why we don't leave it to the last week.

The specific set of colours chosen for a space and how they're distributed — dominant, secondary, accent — coordinated with material palette and lighting rather than picked as isolated paint chips. The same colour reads differently under the lighting plan's actual fixtures than it does on a swatch under daylight.

The single managed space — WIP, Shared, Published, Archive — where every discipline's model and document lives, so nobody is coordinating against an email attachment from three weeks ago. Moving a file from WIP to Shared is a deliberate, approved act, not a save button; that's what stops half-finished work being treated as coordinated fact.

A local authority's long-term policy document setting land use, infrastructure and growth direction for a city or region, which zoning ordinances are then written to implement. It operates above any single master plan or project — it's the reasoning zoning exists to enforce, not a drawing you design against directly.

Authority approval to use a plot for something not automatically allowed under its base zoning, granted case-by-case with specific conditions attached — a commercial use inside a residential zone, for instance. It's a formal exception process, not a loophole, and it can be refused or revoked if conditions aren't met.

The full drawing set a contractor actually builds from — plans, sections, elevations, details, schedules — precise enough to price and construct without guessing our intent. This is where an unresolved Design Development decision becomes expensive, since ambiguity here turns into a site query or a costly assumption.

The intensity of development on a given area of land, usually measured as dwelling units or population per hectare — a planning lever authorities use to manage infrastructure load, distinct from FAR, which caps built floor area on an individual plot rather than population across a district.

The stage after Schematic Design where the concept gets resolved into real dimensions — structural grid, wall types, window sizes, ceiling heights — coordinated enough that construction documentation can be drawn without redesigning as we go. Structural and MEP input starts landing properly here, not after.

A live model kept synced to the actual, operating building — sensor data, maintenance records, real occupancy — rather than the as-built snapshot frozen at handover. Most projects we deliver stop at the as-built model; a true digital twin is a bigger, ongoing commitment few clients here are asking for yet, but the foundation is the same coordinated BIM data.

A legal right for someone other than the landowner to use part of a plot for a specific purpose — a utility company's cable route, a shared access path to a neighbouring property — that restricts what can be built over that portion even though the land is privately owned.

A straight-on, undistorted view of one face of a building, showing height, window and door positions, and material changes without perspective distortion. It's a design and communication drawing as much as a technical one — it's usually the first drawing a client actually reads and reacts to.

Any part of a structure — a wall, a cantilevered balcony, even a boundary fence — extending past the legal building line, right-of-way, or plot boundary onto land it has no right to occupy. It's one of the most common reasons a completed structure fails final approval, and correcting it after construction is far costlier than catching it at site-plan stage.

Designing furniture and layout dimensions around how the human body actually sits, reaches and moves — counter heights, seating depth, clearance for a wheelchair or a child — rather than standard catalogue sizes alone. It matters most in kitchens, workspaces and bathrooms, where a few centimetres wrong makes a space genuinely uncomfortable to use daily.

The exterior face of a building — its material, fenestration rhythm, and detailing — that carries most of a project's visual identity and is usually where a client's aspiration and the structural or budget reality get negotiated hardest. It's also the envelope doing the real work of keeping weather, heat and noise out, not just the part that photographs well.

An early assessment testing whether a project is realistically viable — checking FAR, zoning, site constraints and rough cost against the client's budget and ambition before real design time is spent. Its job is to say no early and cheaply, if the answer is no, rather than after a full design has already been drawn.

Every discipline's individual model — architecture, structure, MEP — linked together in one coordination environment without being merged into a single file. Each team keeps authoring their own model; the federation is where clashes get checked and the whole building gets looked at together, usually weekly through construction documentation.

The arrangement, size and proportion of windows and openings in a building's facade, considered for daylight, view and ventilation together rather than window placement decided purely on the exterior elevation's appearance. Interior design and architecture genuinely share this term, since fenestration decided at Design Development directly shapes what the lighting plan has to work with later.

The document listing every material, finish and product specified for every surface and room — flooring, paint, tile, hardware — cross-referenced so a contractor knows exactly what to install where without guessing from a mood board alone. It's what turns a design intention into something actually procurable and installable.

The ratio of total built-up floor area to plot area, set by the local development authority, that caps how much building a plot legally supports regardless of how tall or wide you'd like to go. Every massing study on a new plot starts with checking FAR, because it decides the ceiling before design even begins.

A horizontal cut through the building at roughly waist height, showing walls, room layout, doors and furniture placement — the drawing most clients actually understand and live with day to day. It's also the drawing that has to reconcile every other requirement: structure, services routing, code-mandated egress, and how a family actually moves through the house.

The regional equivalent of FAR used in some jurisdictions' planning regulations — the ratio of permitted built floor area to plot area — governing the same constraint under a different name. Which term a project uses depends entirely on which authority's byelaws apply to that plot.

The element a room is deliberately designed to draw the eye toward first — a fireplace, a feature wall, a piece of art — used to anchor the rest of the layout and material choices around it. A room without one usually reads as visually flat, regardless of how good its individual elements are.

The specific arrangement of furniture pieces within a planned space, tested against real clearances — walking paths, door swings, seating distances — not just how it looks in a rendering. A layout that looks balanced on a flat plan can still fail in the room if a drawer can't actually open.

Undeveloped land with no prior construction or infrastructure, offering a comparatively clean slate for master planning but usually requiring new utility connections and access roads to be brought to the site — costs a brownfield or infill site may already have partly solved.

The total built-up floor area of a building measured to the outer face of exterior walls, including structure, stairwells and shafts — the figure development authorities actually use against FAR, distinct from the smaller carpet area a client experiences as usable space.

The open, software-neutral file format that lets a Revit model, a Tekla model and an MEP tool actually talk to each other without everyone standardising on one vendor. We export to IFC for coordination with consultants who aren't on our authoring platform — it's what makes Open BIM possible rather than a slogan.

New construction on a vacant or underused plot within an already built-up, serviced area, rather than expanding onto undeveloped land at a city's edge. It generally has existing utility and road access already in place, but tighter site constraints and closer neighbouring context than a greenfield project.

The ISO 19650 document specifying exactly what information gets exchanged, when, and in what format, at each stage of a project — effectively the process map the BEP and Model Element Table get built from. It's process, not geometry: it says when a fire-rating value is due, not what the wall looks like.

The international standard for managing information over a building's life — who produces what, in what format, checked and approved by whom, before it moves from the CDE's Work-in-Progress area to Shared. It replaced the older PAS 1192 framework. On a real project it shows up as the Exchange Information Requirements and the naming convention every file has to follow.

How a parcel of land is actually being used or is planned to be used — residential, agricultural, institutional — the broader planning category zoning regulates toward. Comprehensive plans work at this level before zoning ordinances translate the intent into enforceable rules for individual plots.

Combining multiple elements at different depths and heights — rugs over flooring, lighting at several levels, textiles over furniture — to give a space visual and tactile depth rather than a flat, single-layer look. A room with a good material palette can still feel unfinished without enough layering to hold it together.

The drawing specifying every light fixture's location, type and switching, layered with ambient, task and accent lighting rather than a single ceiling fixture per room. It has to be coordinated with the reflected ceiling plan and structural grid early, since retrofitting a missed switch point after the ceiling is closed means opening it back up.

A wall carrying structural load down to the foundation, as opposed to a partition that only divides space and can be moved freely. Identifying which is which matters most during renovation — removing a load-bearing wall without a structural engineer's beam design is how a real ceiling ends up on a real floor.

LOD tells you how far a model element can be trusted at a given project stage — not just its shape, but whether its size, position, quantity and specification are real or placeholder. We assign an LOD per element per stage in the BEP; running clash detection against a duct that's only LOD 200 catches nothing, because it hasn't been sized yet.

The basic three-dimensional volume and proportion of a building — its overall bulk, height and footprint — worked out before facade material or interior layout is resolved. A massing study tests whether a concept fits the plot's FAR, setbacks and height limit at all, before time is spent designing details that might not survive that check.

A rough three-dimensional model exploring how much building bulk a site can realistically hold within its FAR, height limit and setbacks, tested before any facade or interior layout work begins. We use it to agree the building's basic envelope with a client before investing design time in details that might not survive it.

The overarching land-use and infrastructure framework for a large site or development — roads, plot subdivisions, green space, utility corridors — set before individual buildings are designed against it. Every subdivision and site plan within a master-planned scheme has to work inside the framework it already committed to.

The finalised, coordinated set of materials and finishes chosen for a project — a handful of textures, tones and surfaces that work together across every room rather than each space picked in isolation. It's the mood board's ideas made specific and buildable, tied directly into the finish schedule.

Custom-built wood joinery — cabinetry, wardrobes, panelling, built-in shelving — fabricated specifically for a project rather than bought off the shelf. It's usually where an interior's budget and craftsmanship show most clearly, and where dimensional accuracy from the space plan matters most, since a built-in doesn't forgive a measurement error the way loose furniture does.

A single project or site combining residential, commercial and sometimes institutional uses rather than one function alone — often built on a podium base with towers or blocks above. It complicates zoning approval and structural planning both, since each use has different code, parking and servicing requirements stacked on the same plot.

The document mapping every building component to its owner, its required LOD at each stage, and which model it lives in — so 'who's modelling the parapet, structure or architecture' has one answer, agreed before anyone starts, not discovered mid-coordination when two disciplines have both modelled it differently.

A curated collection of images, materials and colours communicating a design direction's overall feel before final specifications are locked — a conversation tool with a client, not a construction document. It has to translate into an actual, procurable material palette and finish schedule, or it stays a nice idea nobody can build from.

The tool we federate discipline models into for clash detection and 4D sequencing — it doesn't edit geometry, it aggregates it, so architecture, structure and MEP can be reviewed together without merging anyone's native file. Clashes found here get written up as BCF and routed back to whoever authored that element.

An existing use of a property that was legal when established but no longer complies with current zoning rules — commonly grandfathered in rather than forced to close, but usually restricted from expanding. It matters most on renovation and adaptive-reuse projects, where the existing use may not be reproducible from scratch under today's rules.

A vendor-neutral way of working — built on IFC and other open formats — so consultants on different software (Revit, ArchiCAD, Tekla) can still coordinate one federated model without every firm buying the same license. We rely on it constantly, since not every structural or MEP consultant we coordinate with is on the same authoring platform.

An additional set of planning rules layered on top of a base zoning designation — heritage protection, height restriction near an airport, a design-review requirement — that applies only within a defined boundary. A plot can be correctly zoned for what you want to build and still be constrained by an overlay nobody checked for at feasibility stage.

Building elements defined by rules and relationships rather than fixed geometry — change a wall's height and the window sills, lintels and quantities tied to it update automatically. It's the difference between BIM and 3D CAD: a parametric door remembers it's a door, with a schedule entry, not just a shape that looks like one.

Using orientation, shading, cross-ventilation and material choice to manage a building's heat and light before mechanical systems are even switched on — reducing the cooling load a client pays for every summer after handover. It has to be decided at Schematic Design; you can't add correct orientation to a building after it's built.

The specific subset of construction documents submitted to the development authority for building permission — enough drawings to prove code and byelaw compliance, not necessarily the full detail set a contractor needs. Getting this approved is a gate the project can't pass without, so it's sequenced ahead of full construction documentation.

Designing public and shared spaces around how people actually gather and move, rather than treating them as leftover area between buildings — seating, shade, sightlines, and a reason to linger, not just circulation. It's a deliberate design intention within urban design, not something that happens automatically once the buildings are placed.

A wide, usually taller base level — commonly parking or retail — that a building's tower or residential floors sit on top of, common in mixed-use and higher-density urban schemes. It changes the structural grid problem, since the tower's column layout above rarely lines up cleanly with the open span parking needs below.

The raw output of a laser scan — millions of measured 3D points describing an existing space exactly as it stands. On its own it's not a BIM model; scan-to-BIM is the separate step of tracing real elements out of that data. We reference the cloud directly in Revit while modelling, rather than eyeballing it from a screenshot.

Extracting exact material and component quantities — concrete volume, wall area, door count — directly from the model rather than measuring off 2D drawings by hand. A properly modelled building with accurate LOD makes this close to automatic; a poorly modelled one just moves the manual counting into software instead of removing it.

Demolishing and rebuilding on a site that already has existing structures and established use, as distinct from developing raw greenfield land — carrying its own considerations around existing tenants, demolition permits, and whatever non-conforming use or informal encroachment the original building had accumulated.

A drawing showing the ceiling as if reflected onto the floor plan below it — light fixtures, ceiling levels, HVAC diffusers, beams — the coordination drawing that catches conflicts between lighting, structure and services before the ceiling is actually built, not after.

The BIM authoring software most of our architectural, structural and MEP modelling runs on — parametric by default, so a section, a schedule and a 3D view of the same wall stay in sync automatically. Distinct from AutoCAD, which draws lines with no memory that a wall is a wall; that difference is most of what 'learning BIM' actually means in practice.

A repeated pattern of elements — evenly spaced windows, a repeating tile motif, alternating materials — that creates visual movement and continuity through a space. It ties an interior back to the building's own facade rhythm and structural grid rather than treating the inside as unrelated to the outside.

The strip of land legally reserved for a road, utility line, or public access, which a private plot's setback and buildable area must respect even where the full width isn't yet built out. Encroaching on it is one of the more common reasons a site plan gets rejected at permit stage.

How the size of furniture, fixtures and architectural elements relates to each other and to the human body within a space — an oversized sofa in a small room, or fixtures too delicate for a double-height volume, both break this even when individually well-chosen. It's judged in the room, not on a rendering.

Laser-scanning an existing structure into a point cloud, then modelling it as a genuine BIM model rather than redrawing from old, unreliable as-built drawings. We use it on renovation and adaptive-reuse work where the original drawings don't match what's actually built — which, on older buildings, is close to guaranteed.

The first design stage — massing, room relationships, and the big structural and spatial moves — worked out at a rough scale before any wall thickness or material is fixed. What we agree with a client here is the concept the rest of the project builds on; changing the layout in Design Development costs far more than changing it now.

A vertical cut through the building showing floor-to-ceiling heights, staircases, structure and how spaces stack — information a plan alone can't show. We rely on sections to catch problems a floor plan hides entirely, like a beam dropping into a doorway's clear height or a stair that doesn't actually fit the floor-to-floor distance.

The minimum required distance between a building's edge and the plot boundary, road, or neighbouring structure, set by local byelaws. It's rarely negotiable and shapes the buildable footprint before a single wall is drawn — get it wrong and CDA/RDA approval simply won't be granted, however good the design is.

A drawing showing a building's footprint positioned on its actual plot — setbacks, access roads, parking, existing trees and levels — the first drawing that tests whether a design genuinely fits the specific piece of land it's meant for, not just the brief in the abstract.

A precise, measured record of a plot's actual boundaries, levels, existing structures and utilities — the factual baseline every subsequent drawing, from site plan to structural grid, is set against. Designing from an old or assumed survey instead of a current one is how boundary and level errors get built into a project from day one.

Textile-based interior elements — curtains, cushions, rugs, upholstery — as distinct from fixed millwork or hard finishes, usually the last layer specified since they're easiest to adjust and most directly carry a space's colour palette and texture. They're also the cheapest way to meaningfully update a space without touching anything structural.

Arranging rooms and furniture layout to match how a space will actually be used — circulation paths, furniture clearances, sightlines — worked out before finishes or material palette are chosen. Get this wrong and no amount of finish quality afterward fixes a room that simply doesn't work for how people move through it.

A single furniture item or fixture — an oversized light, a sculptural chair — chosen deliberately to anchor a room and carry more visual weight than everything around it. It only works if the rest of the room is designed to support it rather than compete with it for attention.

The regular column-and-beam layout underlying a building's structure, set early because it constrains everything drawn on top of it — room widths, window rhythm, even where a load-bearing wall can or can't move. Changing the grid in Design Development after structure has sized against it is one of the most expensive changes a project can make.

Dividing a larger parcel of land into smaller, independently titled plots, each meeting minimum size and access requirements set by the local authority — the process that turns one master-planned site into the individual plots later sold and built on separately.

A physical sample of a material or finish — fabric, paint, stone, laminate — used to confirm colour and texture in person before it's specified in the finish schedule, since screen and print colour rarely match reality precisely. A swatch approved under showroom lighting still needs checking against the room's actual light.

Arranging elements so visual weight is distributed evenly across a space — either mirrored exactly (symmetry) or balanced through different but equivalent elements (asymmetrical balance). Both are deliberate compositional choices in a furniture layout, not something that happens automatically once furniture is placed in a room.

The tactile and visual surface quality of a material — rough stone against smooth plaster, matte against gloss — used deliberately to add depth to a space that a single flat colour palette can't provide on its own. Overlooking texture is a common reason a technically well-planned room still feels visually thin.

A classification system for organising building information — every wall type, every space, every product coded consistently — so a schedule, a cost plan and a model all describe the same element the same way. We use it, or a locally adapted equivalent, to keep COBie and quantity data structured rather than ad hoc.

The discipline shaping the public realm between buildings — streets, squares, block layout, how a place is actually experienced on foot — sitting above individual building design and below regional master planning. A well-planned master plan can still produce poor urban design if the space between buildings was never actually considered.

Building traditions developed locally over generations in response to climate, available material and culture, rather than imported from elsewhere — thick mud walls and courtyards in hot, dry regions, for instance. We reference it for passive-design lessons worth carrying into contemporary work, not as a style to copy decoratively.

Design that helps people orient themselves and navigate a space intuitively — signage, but also lighting, material changes and sightlines used as implicit cues — most relevant in larger or public interiors like offices, schools and hospitality, where a visitor has no existing mental map of the building.

The local authority's classification of what a given area of land may legally be used for — residential, commercial, industrial, mixed-use — and often what can be built there. It's checked before feasibility even starts, since a beautifully planned commercial building on a residentially zoned plot is simply not approvable as drawn.