Creating housing units

Step-by-step guide

When adding housing units to a Forma proposal, once a housing type is defined, it can then be saved as a template. Then, multiple units of that type can be added quickly, rather than defining them individually. Housing types can be saved to your library and the Hub for future use, which makes them helpful for filtering and reviewing local housing metrics.

To add housing units:

1. Open a proposal in which you are ready to add housing units.
2. On the Design toolbar, click Building > House.

Note: The House tool is used to draw single houses or row houses, as opposed to multi-story buildings.

3. On the canvas, pan and zoom to the desired location.
4. Click and drag to start drawing a line of row houses.
5. If needed, on the visibility and orientation toolbar, switch to 2D mode to make it easier to see the pink snap lines.

6. In the right panel, under House Automation, alter the alignment of the building relative to the line by clicking Align right or Align left.

7. When you are happy with the positioning, click to place the houses.
8. Return to a 3D view and zoom in a little to see the row of houses.

These new houses are saved as the Default housing type. This template can be edited and renamed. You can create as many templates as desired.

To create a housing template:

9. Click the row of houses.
10. In the right panel, under Houses, click Default.
11. In the House templates dialog box, next to Default, click Edit.

12. In the Default dialog box, the template settings can be adjusted, such as building dimensions, number of floors, and roof type.
13. To define the roof, under Building, click the right arrow next to the house image until it shows the Flat roof. The Flat roof type is selected.

Note: Both the preview in the dialog box and the site houses update dynamically with each setting change.

14. Above the roof type, set the number of floors to 3.
15. Optionally, set the dimensions of the building and the parcel.
16. Under Layout, use the dot grid to select the location of the building in relation to the parcel. Use the preview as a guide. In this case, click the lower middle dot to position the green space at the back of the housing units.
17. Under Parcel, set the length to 24 meters.
18. Click Function.
19. In the Swap Function dialog box, set the function to Residential.
20. Alternatively, click the Settings cog to create other functions, if you want to see them reflected in the area metrics.
21. Click Publish.

22. Review the updated Default template.
23. Back in the House templates dialog box, click Create new to create one or more different housing types.

To adjust the drawing and add more houses:

24. Return to 2D mode.
25. Resize the house row.
26. Add more house rows.
27. Rotate and align the house rows.

To copy a row of housing units:

28. Right-click the house row and select Copy.
29. Paste it into the desired location.

When you are finished creating the row houses, to rename them in the Library:

30. Click the object name to highlight it.
31. Type a new name, such as, “Row house Flat roof”.
32. Press ENTER.

To reuse a drawn housing type, either in the current project or across all projects in your portfolio:

33. Click More (⋮).
34. Select Share to the Hub Library.

35. Expand the Project drop-down and select Hub.

A message appears, stating that this template is now shared across projects on the hub. Keep in mind that other hub members can now access this house template.

To reuse the template:

36. In the Library, select the Project.
37. Drag and drop the template onto the site.

38. Move the new row houses to place them where desired.

To add a road for access to the new row houses:

39. In the Design toolbar, click Transportation > Roads, or press the keyboard shortcut T.

40. Click and drag to draw the road.
41. In the right panel, adjust the road width.
42. Adjust the placement of the row houses.

Note: Also in the right panel is an overview of the area metrics in the proposal. The metrics in this example project are specific to Norway, but in general terms, these metrics contain the building coverage, or footprint, and the gross floor area, which is the sum of all the floors. It also reports the net internal area broken down by function. In this case, all the buildings are tagged as Residential, but when you use different functions, you will see a breakdown.

To verify the unit types:

43. Click the Units tab for an overview of the unit types.

In this case, they are all the same size, because only one house template was used. Here, you see that there are 29 units in total, and all of them are greater than 85 m².

It is possible to adjust the grouping of unit sizes through the Settings menu, which can be found in the sidebar.