It’s that time of year again, where many of our team start to wind down for a well-deserved winter break. One of the great benefits of being a cloud-based product is that we release updates and new features as-and-when they are ready. This isn’t just nice for our product team, who can enjoy seeing the fruits of their labor as soon as they are finished on a project, but it’s also greatly beneficial to our customers, who always have access to the most up-to-date version of Spacemaker.
However, with so many tweaks and improvements, it can sometimes be challenging to keep track of all that’s happened over the past 12 months. So, every December we make a list of all our releases, no matter how big or small. Check out the list at the bottom of the blog – we’d love to hear what your favorite 2022 update was in our forum! Here are a couple of ours:
Doubling down on sustainability
We’ve long held the view that Spacemaker, even in its earliest days, is a tool for sustainability. By using data and insight to make better decisions right at the beginning of the planning process you reduce the risk that you will need to implement expensive and inefficient fixes at a later point. Moreover, by ensuring that the buildings we create balance quality and density, we can create sites that have a longer lifespan. In 2021, we went further, and started building out features that provided insight on various sustainability factors. Namely, our microclimate analysis – which can help mitigate urban heat islands.
In 2022, we have committed further to ensuring that architects can work towards sustainable outcomes right at the beginning of the planning process. In addition to releasing various improvements to our microclimate analysis, we launched our solar panel analysis, where you can assess rooftop energy potential as you design. Furthermore, we released our rapid operational energy analysis in beta in October, helping our users understand the potential operational energy of their buildings. See a breakdown of all our sustainability analyses here.
Rapid analysis
To truly achieve outcome-driven design, you need access to data while you are designing . All our analyses provide fast results, usually in a matter of minutes. But we wanted to push ourselves further – using machine learning to deliver insights in real-time. We now have rapid analyses for area, sun, noise, wind, and operational energy – creating a seamless workflow that melds insight and design.
2023, here we come!
What about next year? Well, we can’t say too much, but we have A LOT of exciting things in the works. Users can expect some significant improvements focusing on a number of areas such as collaboration, workflows and interoperability. We know that many of our customers are already finding huge value in using Spacemaker, and we can’t wait to see this increase further in 2023. In the meantime, we wish everyone a happy holiday and a great end to the year.
2022 Feature releases (newest to oldest)
New, improved microclimate analysis
Draw polygon buildings with higher precision
Enhancements to the interoperability between Spacemaker and Revit
New rapid operational energy analysis now available in Design
New project access: Invite members from within specific projects
Set parking targets for your project
Introducing the Navigator tab in the sidebar
Sight lines support in the view analyses
New rapid wind analysis now available in Design
Ensure project confidentiality with Invite-Only
New design of the rapid analyses section
Create multi-story units with “Joined units”
Navigation update in Analyze: Volume/Unit toggle is removed
Released our new Revit add-in is available for everyone in beta!
Launched Solar panel analysis in beta!
Line buildings automatically placed on top of polygon buildings
Efficiency factors in Compare
Input fields for area metrics in library
UK area metrics
Selection and highlighting from key figures in analyze
US area metrics
Honorable mentions (non-product):
Launched our new community forum!
New onboarding: Learning the Spacemaker essentials via the help panel
