Case Study: Mimesis Council Planning Prototype

Short form

A prototype that puts a 3D house plan on the web with the tools town planners need to assess and approve a build, tested before committing to the full system.

The challenge

Getting a new building approved is slow and bureaucratic. What can be a nine-month approval process runs on long letters and conflicting versions of documents, with the architect, the planners and specialists all working from different copies. Mimesis wanted to show that this could be done far more simply, but a complex idea like that is hard to sell to stakeholders on paper alone.

What we built

We built a prototype that puts a 3D model of a house plan on a website, alongside the tools a town planner needs to assess and approve a new building. It let Mimesis demonstrate a complex concept being solved simply, so stakeholders could see it working rather than imagine it.

The outcome

The prototype earned the buy-in Mimesis needed to progress the project, and it proved the technology was possible, which let us make sensible decisions about the actual build. The approach it demonstrated turns a nine-month approval process into a managed negotiation of a few weeks, with the architect, town planners and specialists such as arborists all engaged on a single point of reference.

Related

Suggested image

A town planner and an architect looking together at a 3D house model on a large screen in a Melbourne council office, warm daylight, a printed site plan on the desk. Documentary style, real collaboration, no floating buildings or hologram effects.