RONCHAMP is one platform for the whole early design workflow of an architecture practice: official parcel and zoning data, buildable-envelope studies, AI floor-plan generation, browser BIM modeling, life-quality simulation and an AI office assistant. This guide starts with an 8-step quick start, then goes module by module. No installation — everything runs in the browser.
Quick start — 8 steps
Create your account
Open the sign-up screen (or use Sign up with Google — one click, no e-mail round-trip). Pick a plan — you can also decide later — and choose a starter kit if you want ready-made permitting workflows in your workspace. Accept the Terms and create the account. A verification e-mail arrives in your inbox; confirm it to unlock payments. Have a beta or invite code? Click “Have a beta / invite code?” on the form.
Meet the panel
The left sidebar is your studio. Top block: Overview (office map and process cards), Steilneset (AI assistant), Nolli (parcels and zoning), Zaha (site study), MIES (browser BIM), Sullivan (life-quality simulation). Bottom block: Plan & billing, Report a bug, Help, theme, Settings and your account. Language (TR/EN) and light/dark theme switches live on the sign-in screen and in Settings.
Load a parcel
Open Nolli or Zaha and look the parcel up: in Türkiye enter province / district / neighbourhood / block / parcel — the parcel's boundary, zoning and buildable area come with their sources. Outside Türkiye pick the country from the list.
Run the site-layout study
With the parcel on screen, wire the study nodes: setbacks, building dimensions or massing shape, floor count, building type, even a pool with a preferred orientation. The study places the buildable envelope on the parcel, reports lot- and floor-area-ratio usage and warns when a rule is violated. Studies are free — they never consume tokens.
Generate floor plans
Wire a room program (bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen…) into the study and hit generate. One generation costs one token and returns several genuinely different variants. Rate them 👍/👎, open any variant in the archive editor to move walls and rename rooms, and keep the ones you like. Multi-storey and apartment programs (units per floor) are supported.
Continue in browser BIM
On any generated plan press the 🏛 button: the plan transfers to MIES as a real building model — walls, floors, openings and an automatically solved stair core. Edit walls and materials, shape the roof, walk the model in 3D.
Simulate quality of life
Open Sullivan and pick a scenario: fire, earthquake, evacuation or daylight. Sullivan runs the event on your actual model — occupants drop, cover and evacuate; trapped residents and 95th-percentile escape times are reported — and scores the design out of 100, so variants can be compared on evidence, not taste.
Work with your AI assistant
Click “Steilneset” in the sidebar and just talk. It sees your own workspace only — your projects, processes and files, never anyone else's — can run office actions with your identity, and answers in your language. Connect your own Google account in Settings to let it use your Drive and Calendar.
ZAHA — site study
Parcel and zoning: Nolli
You find the parcel by its country, province, district, neighbourhood, block and parcel number. Nolli reads its boundary, its zoning and its buildable area: the cadastre, the municipality's zoning record, the plan sheet, the plan register and the regulations in force. Every figure comes with its source; a figure that is not certain is never shown as settled.
Program
- Number of blocks — as many as you like; as many stand as the parcel holds. Most blocks puts the count first, then the floor area right.
- Building order — detached, semi-detached or attached; the parcel's own order is chosen for you. Semi-detached makes each block two units sharing a wall; attached stands the blocks in one row on the front building line, from side boundary to side boundary.
- Block size — least and most frontage and depth; those a rule gives are filled in, and you can change them.
- Layout and site — where no rule gives them, the distance between buildings and the storeys; an optional site road and pools (one in each garden, or one shared).
Study and canvas
- Zaha lays the blocks out by the zoning rules: the floor area right is used, every garden meets the road or the street, gardens are rectangles and as equal as they can be; a share of the right left unused, or gardens left unequal, is said with its reason.
- On the canvas you drag blocks, turn one a quarter with a double click, type its size, add or take away blocks; move garden lines, take the road away and give it back piece by piece, or draw your own. A block that breaks a rule is marked; undo and redo are open at every step.
- Output: an A3 sheet under your office's title band, and a DXF; the study is kept among the Drawings (with a project or on its own) and opens again from there.
MIES — BIM in the browser
MIES is a real building modeler running natively in the browser tab — no install, no export-import dance with the rest of RONCHAMP.
- Model editing: walls with proper mitred joins, floors, roof shaping, door/window openings, storey management.
- Materials: a procedural PBR material library with real-metre texture density (world-scale UV) — drag a material onto a surface; photo-realistic view with ambient light and ambient occlusion.
- Landscape: drag-and-drop trees and site elements around the building.
- Navigation: WASD + Q/E fly, Shift speeds up (×3).
- Output: sheets and drawings from the model; your Sullivan simulations read this same model directly.
SULLIVAN — simulate life before you build it
Sullivan is a deterministic life-quality engine: it populates your actual model with occupants and runs events against it. Results are measurements, not vibes — the same model always scores the same.
- Scenarios: fire, earthquake (drop-cover-hold, then evacuate), evacuation drill, daylight. Pick the floor, event type and location, and speed.
- Result card: evacuated vs trapped occupants, 95th-percentile escape time, per-scenario score out of 100.
- Grounded in standards: evacuation uses SFPE walking-speed hydraulics (stairs slow correctly), daylight uses real solar geometry (a north-facing kitchen honestly gets 0 morning sun), privacy uses isovist line-of-sight — walls actually block views.
- Compare variants: run the same scenario on two designs and let the numbers argue.
STEILNESET — your AI office assistant
Steilneset is a persistent-memory assistant that lives inside your panel. It is not a chatbot bolted on: it can act, with your identity, on your workspace.
- What it can do: answer questions about your projects and processes, create and update records, run office workflows, read your connected Drive and Calendar, prepare documents — always as you, never beyond your permissions.
- Isolation you can trust: it sees only your workspace. Other tenants' data, other offices, the platform owner's data — none of it is reachable from your chat.
- Attachments: drop a photo or PDF into the chat; the assistant picks the right tool (OCR, document reading) for it.
- Plan availability: the assistant is included in Studio and Office plans (see Pricing).
OFFICE WORKFLOW — the process spine
Under the Overview, RONCHAMP runs a full office-process engine — the same one that runs EEMH's own permitting practice.
- Cards & steps: define process cards (e.g. Permit Preparation) with ordered steps; attach document types and evidence.
- Templates & projects: a template bundles cards, variables and a title pattern; every new project starts from one and tracks its own completions.
- Automation: triggers (e-mail arrival, time) can advance workflows; e-mail templates resolve recipients by project role; documents generate from your own Word/Excel templates.
- Starter kit: the “Permitting” kit installs a ready skeleton — 4 cards, 16 steps, templates, goals and message templates — one click at sign-up or later from Settings.
- Your Google, your data: each account connects its own Google (Drive/Gmail/Calendar) in Settings; nothing routes through anyone else's account.
ACCOUNT, PLANS & BILLING
- Plans: Sketch, Studio and Office — a monthly token allowance and, from Office, seats for your team. The current prices and allowances are on Pricing; cancel anytime.
- Tokens: one token = one plan generation. Studies, sheets, editors, archive: free. Unused tokens don't roll over; quotas renew each period.
- Payments: processed by Paddle (merchant of record) — cards accepted, taxes handled, invoices issued by Paddle. RONCHAMP never sees or stores card details. Upgrades charge only the prorated difference.
- Security: e-mail verification at sign-up, optional TOTP two-factor (Settings), password reset by e-mail, session revocation (“sign out everywhere”).
- Feedback: the 🐞 “Report a bug” button in the sidebar goes straight to the team — every report is read.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Surface | Keys |
|---|---|
| MIES | WASD move · Q/E up/down · Shift ×3 speed |
| ZAHA canvas | Ctrl+Z undo · Ctrl+Y redo · arrows nudge the chosen block · Del takes it away · Esc lets the choice go · Enter finishes a road being drawn |
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. RONCHAMP runs entirely in a modern desktop browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox). 3D and BIM use WebGL, which every current browser provides.
- Who owns my data?
- You do. Your projects, parcels, plans and files belong to your account; other tenants can never see them. Google data stays in your own Google account — you connect it, you can disconnect it.
- What exactly costs a token?
- Only pressing “generate” on a floor-plan program. Everything else — parcel queries, zoning, studies, editing, sheets, DXF/PDF/PNG export, 3D, Sullivan — is free of tokens. New accounts start with 10 free trial credits, so you can try real generations before choosing a plan.
- Which DXF version do you export?
- A widely compatible ASCII DXF that AutoCAD, BricsCAD, LibreCAD and every mainstream CAD opens; walls arrive layer-separated (KATMAN_*).
- Can my whole office share one account?
- Yes. An Office account carries seats: invite colleagues by email and give each one a role — owner, editor or viewer. Everyone works in the same workspace, on the same projects, templates and flows.
- Is there a refund?
- Cancellation stops the next renewal; access continues to the end of the paid period. Withdrawal and refund conditions are on Delivery & Refunds.
- I have a beta / invite code — where do I use it?
- On the sign-up form, click “Have a beta / invite code?” and paste it — if the code carries a plan, it is activated on your account automatically, free of charge.
- Does RONCHAMP replace my CAD/BIM suite?
- It replaces the early phase: feasibility, zoning, concept plans, massing, early BIM and client-ready evidence. Construction documentation continues in your usual tools — via DXF today.
Troubleshooting
- The panel looks outdated / a feature is missing
- Your browser cached an old version. Hard-refresh with Ctrl+F5 (or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac).
- My parcel isn't found
- Check the query format for your country (table above). Rural/new subdivisions can lag official services; try coordinate search where supported. Some national services have nightly maintenance windows — try again later.
- Generation seems stuck in the queue
- Generations run in a fair queue; you see your position live (“position 2 of 3”). If a temporary network error occurs, the panel retries automatically and your token is not double-charged — the same request never bills twice.
- I didn't receive the verification / reset e-mail
- Check spam first. For verification, use “Resend” on the banner at the top of the panel; for password reset, request a new link — only the newest link is valid.
- Payment finished but the plan doesn't show
- Paddle confirms payments by signed server notification; the panel polls and refreshes within seconds. If it takes longer than a minute, reload the Plan & billing view — and if it still doesn't appear, use Report a bug; the team sees payment records instantly.
- 3D view is slow on my laptop
- Close other GPU-heavy tabs, and prefer the browser's hardware acceleration enabled (default). The 3D views render on demand — when you stop moving, they stop drawing, saving battery.