Starting in 2019, WATG and TestFit, company that specializes in generative design, entered a partnership to explore the potential of design option automation for hospitality building types TestFit.io has enabled our team to quickly move past parking and unit calculations, so we can spend more time on what we love, world-renowned, innovative design. The timing of this article aligns with the release of TestFit 2.9, which officially introduced hotel functionality.
Architecture from the University of Texas and found that after years of working in the architecture and real estate industries, there had to be a solution to the countless requests he was getting for site plan updates. “I found that the problem was that they model deals in Excel, where ‘What if?’ analysis is a core component to their jobs. Site planning on trace or even in some of the CAD tools is cumbersome to update in real-time” says Harness.
Image © WATG
Over the course of a few years, TestFit.io was born. Aside from being a tool that helps planners, architects, developers and engineers alike, the company has also proven how the efficiency of TestFit.io ultimately yields qualitative savings for users. And while WATG has expanded globally with offices in six countries on three continents, the firm has diligently and passionately retained a nimble, pioneering ethos. Allowing the freedom and flexibility to explore new ways to innovate, including working with companies like TestFit.io.
Summer Hack
Rather than just deploy this tool among designers, WATG decided to build upon the success of an internal parametric design Hackathon last fall and host a quarantine-friendly virtual “Summer Hack” where employees had one hour to test the latest TestFit features and report back their lessons learned.
“The results were beyond impressive, especially given the time frame, and the feedback was invaluable. It was our pleasure to go on this generative design journey,” says Andrew King, Design Technology Specialist at WATG. “I was morally opposed to automation programs like TestFit before this Summer Hack, but I learned that it’s a great tool to quantify data to use as a basis for design,” says Tiffany Lee , Operations Director of WATG Honolulu.
Image © WATG
While some participants were being introduced to TestFit.io for the first time, others who have used the program before were pleased to test out their latest suite of hospitality features, which included:
- Supporting module/key relationships typical in hospitality design
- Structural alignment across corridors, which enable high-rise buildings
- Flexibility to support programmatic elements to be placed within a parking garage
- An embedded program into the configurator that pulls preset ratios and size requirements known to specific hotel brands (a feature that’s currently in the works!). Source and images Courtesy of WATG.
