About Design Explorer

A coordination tool for building projects: the 3D model, with what the job knows about each piece of equipment kept on the equipment itself.

Click a UPS, a generator or a cooling unit and see its tag, supplier and order, whether its submittal is approved, when it arrives, when it is needed on site, what stage it has reached and what it is still waiting on. It is made by Gorkytecture for the stretch from design development through construction. It is not a CAD program — you keep modelling in Revit, Rhino or SketchUp.

What it does

• The model. Revit, Rhino and SketchUp through plug-ins that send the model and show changes live; IFC, glTF, 3DM, OBJ and STL by upload; PDF or image floor plans underneath. Cutaways, sections, cut plans, dimensions, grids, levels, rooms and areas.
• Deliveries. Ordered, on the way, delivered, placed on site — colored on the model. A needed-on-site date for each item, with a warning when a delivery will land after it; supplier delivery logs imported from Excel.
• Submittals and RFIs. Numbered logs tied to the objects they cover, with review history, reviewers and answers — including answers given through a client link.
• Install readiness. What each item is waiting on before it can go in: approvals, parts, deliveries and other items that must be installed first.
• Permits and utility power. Permits and agency approvals with their decision dates, and the utility interconnection countdown.
• Tables. Equipment schedule, procurement, submittals, readiness, quantities and rooms — editable, in bulk, and out to Excel or CSV.
• Estimate. Prices by type from the model's own quantities, with a cost heat map on the model.
• Documents. A one-click weekly report, true-scale plan sheets with a title block, and presentation pages from live views — all as PDFs.
• What's new. Every change on the project, grouped by kind, so nobody has to ask what happened since yesterday.

Who uses it

Everyone on a project sees the same model, arranged for their job:

• Owner and admin — invites the team, keeps client links and model versions.
• Executive — the project at a glance.
• Project manager — what is waiting on somebody: submittals, deliveries, RFIs, permits.
• 3D modeling — the model, rooms, dimensions and RFIs, without prices.
• Management and finance — quantities, procurement, the estimate and prices.
• Site — one tap for arrived, placed and installed, and photos on the item's card.

Consultants, contractors and clients outside the team get a share link that shows only what it was set to show. It needs no account and nothing installed, and it works on a phone.

Private and by invitation