Refurb! A tool allowing for iterative refurbishment

Refurbishments and adaptations to existing building structures can be a challenging problem: Keeping track of all building measures (e.g. what walls, doors and installations to add or remove) is equally demanding as trying to keep an eye on the constraints (e.g. natural lighting) and functions that the changed structure will provide. It also demands a integrated view of the redesign (spatial aspect) and the refurbishment as a project (time aspect). To this end, we have been developing our planning tool ``Refurb!'', which lets a user plan refurbishments and adaptations to existing structures using a mixed metaphor of ``CAD-tool + project plan'', including a variety of analysis tools to compare the original state of a structure to the planned one (e.g. adjacency and circulation before and after adaptation). The tool is aimed at project planners and ranges from small scenarios (e.g. relocation/adaptation/refurbishment of a department) to big scenarios (e.g. relocation when bringing a hospital into service).