Drafted is a free, cloud-assisted Revit add-in for early-stage residential planning. It converts a structured design brief—primarily a room list, optional footprint, and generation settings—into five alternative house-plan concepts in roughly 45 seconds. Unlike an image generator, it returns native, editable Revit geometry, including walls, floors, roofs, doors, windows, and rooms. Its purpose is to accelerate schematic exploration and give designers several BIM-ready starting points rather than produce construction-ready documentation.
How the Revit Workflow Operates
- Define the boundary. Use Draw Shape to trace a footprint, or omit the footprint and allow Drafted to establish the overall form.
- Build the program. Add the required spaces, such as bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen, living areas, garage, and porches.
- Generate alternatives. Submit the inputs through the Drafted ribbon. Processing occurs on Drafted’s servers and requires an internet connection.
- Compare five schemes. Each generation round places five alternatives on the Revit canvas for side-by-side review.
- Iterate. Revise the footprint, room list, or settings and generate another set if the initial options are unsuitable.
- Develop the selected option. Continue editing the chosen native Revit elements using normal modeling, coordination, and documentation practices.
Generated Content and Deliverables
- Native model elements: Editable Revit walls, floors, roofs, doors, windows, and rooms rather than a flattened image or imported underlay.
- Multiple design options: Five distinct floor-plan concepts per generation round, supporting rapid comparison of adjacency, circulation, footprint efficiency, and program fit.
- Basic project views and documentation: Each option is reported to include square footage, room count, a 3D view, elevations, area plans, and sheets.
- Account synchronization: Generated work also syncs with the user’s Drafted account at Drafted.ai.
- Continued editability: Teams can adjust the generated geometry, replace content with office-standard families and types, and carry the preferred concept into conventional Revit design development.
Requirements, Installation, and Data Handling
- Account: A free Drafted account is required; sign-in is initiated from the Drafted ribbon tab and approved in a browser.
- Connection: Internet access is required during generation because the AI service runs in the cloud.
- Installation: The add-in is distributed through the Autodesk App Store. One installer registers it for supported Revit versions found on the computer.
- Published data practice: Drafted states that the add-in sends the design inputs created for generation—such as the room list, footprint, and settings—but does not upload the Revit model, model contents, or file paths.
Scope and Important Limitations
- Current design scope: Single-family, single-story residential schematic design.
- Not currently generated: Multi-story, multifamily, or commercial projects.
- Excluded systems and details: Stairs, ceilings, structural framing, MEP systems, and schedules remain part of the downstream Revit workflow.
- No code assurance: Generated schemes do not perform building-code compliance checking.
- Not construction-ready: Outputs require review and development by qualified design professionals before use for permitting, pricing, coordination, or construction.
- Cloud dependency: Generation depends on an external service and connectivity, so firms should evaluate availability, information-governance requirements, and acceptable project data before production use.
- Early-stage quality: AI-generated layouts can shorten the blank-page phase, but room dimensions, circulation, accessibility, constructability, egress, structure, systems integration, and office standards must still be validated.
Practical BIM Assessment
Where It Adds Value
- Best-fit use cases: Feasibility studies, client programming sessions, test fits, developer option studies, and rapid discussion of residential layout directions.
- Primary strength: It creates several materially different BIM concepts quickly, reducing the time spent creating the first set of alternatives and avoiding a disconnected image-to-model handoff.
- Workflow advantage: Because the result is native Revit content, the selected scheme can be interrogated and revised immediately instead of being rebuilt from a raster plan.
- Team impact: The tool is most useful as an option generator under designer supervision, not as an autonomous designer. A controlled handoff should include model cleanup, audited room data, type replacement, standards checks, and discipline review.
- Recommended pilot: Test it on a completed or low-risk single-story residential program. Compare generation time, usable-option rate, cleanup effort, dimensional quality, adjacency success, and conformity with office standards against the team’s conventional schematic workflow.
Independent Review Perspective
A September 2026 hands-on review characterized Drafted as a genuinely generative planning tool whose structured inputs produce meaningfully different schemes. The review praised its constraint-based workflow and five-option generation, while noting that the interface could communicate more clearly whether manually placed rooms are fixed constraints or general guidance. It also reported uncertainty around web-product download entitlements and professional export quality.
Sources Consulted
- Autodesk Marketplace — “Drafted: AI House Plan Generator”
- Drafted — “Drafted in Revit Documentation”
- Drafted — “Install and sign in”
- DesignWhine — “Drafted AI Review: Floor Plans Without the Blank Canvas” (September 16, 2026)
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| Generation output, fully editable walls, doors, windows, roof, floors, etc. |
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| 3D View of several rows of generations |
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| 3 Rounds of generations on the canvas, each round outputs five fully editable house plans. |
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