Natural
elements are an essential part of the built environment. However, BIM tools offer
almost no support to landscape architecture. Plehat is introducing a new
solution that helps architects and decision-makers to understand the dynamics
of nature and make smart design choices.
Plehat used
photogrammetric 3D models of Uunisaari islands, to the south of Helsinki. The
experimenters modeled the buildings and the plants on the island and used game
engine software to create a virtual reality (VR) experience. They called the
app the “Landscape Time Machine”. The technology solution they developed paved the
way for new software that the company will launch later this year.
In 2018,
Plehat, a landscape design startup, received funding from the Finnish national
KIRA-digi digitalization project to carry out a test. The experimentation
demonstrated how seasonal changes and weather conditions affect plants, and how
the environment can be visualized and analyzed virtually.
From Gaming to Landscaping
Lauri Lemmenlehti, the CEO of Plehat, is a video game enthusiast.
During his studies, he was fascinated by the way computer game developers model
environments. Grand Theft Auto 5, a six-year-old game, is a great example of
this. It includes an urban environment, a mixture of San Francisco and
Los Angeles and a pseudo-California, in an area of roughly 100 square kilometers
of natural environments.
The developer
in charge of modeling those natural environments told Lemmenlehti that it took
around three years for 25–30 people to complete their task. There are few environmental
projects in the physical world with as much design power.
Inspired by
video games that could handle such large-scale natural environments, game
engines were a logical platform of choice for Lemmenlehti.
Landscape Design Needs a
Digital Boost
“There’s a
real danger that in digitalization our profession is going to be left behind
the rest of the construction industry,” says Lemmenlehti. “To make things
worse, there’s no international consensus on what to model of the natural
environment, or how.”
Lemmenlehti
and Mikko Vekkeli founded Plehat in
early 2017. Nine people now work at the company, which offers consulting
services and develops its own software. Their first product will be a plant
library for designers.
Lemmenlehti
emphasizes the difference between design for construction and for landscape
design. Building projects produce a physical product that usually stays the
same or nearly the same for a long time. Construction has a starting point and a
completion date.
Unlike
buildings, landscapes are never “finished”. Plants grow, change their shape,
and often look very different in mid-summer and mid-winter. Environmental
conditions — wind, rain, the light and the soil — affect plant growth a great
deal. A pine on a windy coast looks quite different than in the mainland. It
takes 30 to 40 years before an environment is fully developed. A landscape
design application must be able to handle the dynamics of natural environments.
A Practical Tool for
Architects
Many
clients don’t hire a professional to do the landscape design. Instead, the
architect of the building designs its surrounding areas. Therein lies the
problem, as Lemmenlehti describes: “Architects struggle to choose plants for a
particular site. They don’t know if the environment is suitable for the plant.
Instead, they make choices based on looks. What they have at their disposal is
a catalog of plants with small photos and codes that indicate various
requirements.”
Plehat
wants to make plant selection simple for the architect. You click on a map and
the app suggests plants that thrive in that environment. In addition, the app
can tell if the plant is available at nursery gardens. With VR glasses, you can
also see how a tree looks in real life, at various ages and in any season. This
helps both the client and the designer to make better decisions and to avoid selecting
plants that will not flourish.
Landscape
architects typically work as sub-consultants to architects. That’s why they use
the same design tools as architects. The leading BIM software packages are
Revit and Archicad, but a few landscape designers also use MicroStation.
Plehat’s
plant app will be an extension to Revit and Archicad, which will enable them to
sell it to both architects and landscape designers. The VR features will
require a PC sufficiently powerful to run a game engine, the platform on which
the app is built. A Mac version is also in the pipeline.
Aiming at an International
Market
The challenge
in developing intelligent tools for landscape architects and designers is the
small market size. In Finland there is just a handful of firms: 300 landscape
architects, and a few hundred landscape designers. The International Federation
of Landscape Architects represents around 25,000 individuals across the world.
In contrast, there are around 2.7 million architects worldwide.
After launching
its app in Finland, Plehat will start selling in other Nordic countries, and
then move into larger markets. The eventual goal is a global plant library of
all relevant species.
The app’s
planned release date is in September 2019. Customers will get a 30-day free
trial, and after that they will make a monthly payment for the service.
Consumers will be given a light, freemium version.
Lemmelehti
believes that their app will not only help designers and decision-makers. It
will also benefit urban environments at large. “Green areas are essential to insects
and the whole ecosystem. We can fill up the city with buildings provided we take
the green environment into account, well in advance,” he concludes.
For more information, visit plehat.com (in Finnish) or contact Lauri Lemmenlehti at
.
Update: Meet Lauri Lemmenlehti at WDBE 2019 in Helsinki on September 24, 2019, where he’s giving a presentation.
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