Baufritz | House Configurator

From Builders to Architects—With the First Fully Customizable Designer Home

94.000

combinations

12

Months of development

1

database

Unique design meets transparent planning

When building a house, it's common for the floor plan to be restricted by factors like structural design. Special requests from clients therefore often require lengthy consultation, planning, and implementation processes. But we developed a house configurator with Baufritz that puts clients right at the heart of the creative process. What's more, every digital design is also feasible thanks to our modular house-

planning concept (“my smart green home”) and smart logic. This means the house builder can now also be the architect of their own homes. It’s easy and intuitive to get started, and great not just for customers but also sales teams. Clients get to enjoy a multi-dimensional house planning experience that breaks down the physical and digital barriers.

Intuitive use, buildable results

Our configurator brings the homebuilding process to life. Design rooms, check buildability, and share your own plans—all thanks to its accessible and easy-to-use interface. It also lives up to design standards set by Baufritz thanks to amazing UX design. Users can design their own unique house in 6 simple steps—including house size, floor plan, and roof shape—whilst background calculations verify the selected combination can be built. Customers also receive clear and consistent information about price adjustments caused by planning changes in real-time. And any designs they produce are perfect for use in consultation or creating quotes. It’s no surprise then that the configurator creates eco-friendly dream homes with short planning periods and transparent costs.

Individual and collaborative advice

A low barrier to entry from the customer point of view, and an effective sales tool from the company point of view: Our house configurator is a genuine all-rounder that provides fully digital completion and the option to connect CRM software for a seamless lead-management process. Generating valuable customer data also allows for further activation measures. The “my smart green home” concept is human-centric, which means it significantly reduces both consultations and build-time. But the house configurator is also the perfect support for sales teams during consultations. So, whether it’s on site in the show house or during remote meetings with the customer, you can develop planning projects together and help your sales team use all their expertise.

CX at the center of the transformation

The construction sector is dynamic: long build times, fluctuating material costs, and ever-changing building requirements all make planning difficult. But Baufritz has adopted a new approach to the planning and production process with “my smart green home”. And we transformed this new, modular house concept into a digital experience that puts the focus on client needs. A digital twin was created that provided valuable insights in terms of feasibility and user behavior—not just for the sales team, but also product development. This digital approach to planning is also the ideal basis for establishing new, digital business processes such as digital samples and digital construction files.

We’ve come to recognize that Experience One is the perfect partner for the digital age of construction. Our shared understanding was clear from our very first talk, and Experience One’s expertise made the seemingly impossible possible: configuring a house online and using that model to bring it to life.

Dagmar Fritz-Kramer
CEO of Baufritz

More performance, layer by layer

Modest development costs and a high-performance model that can grow and evolve with the project—the demands on visual rendering were high. But we met these challenges with our Layering Engine, which overlays isometric images of individual components and modules. This helped increase performance because it means the house configurator doesn't have to load the entire scene—only part of it. The layering approach also made it possible to make various adjustments, allowing the “my smart green home” digital model and architectural concept to grow together as one over the course of the project.

One configurator, 94,000 combinations

We engineered the house configurator so that you can build every single (conflict-free) module combination it produces. If selected modules don’t go together, users are presented with a possible alternative. Simple if-then rules proved insufficient, so we opted for a decision tree instead. This made it easier to trace back user decisions and keep track of conflicts, but also offer better solutions. The result is 94,000 buildable combinations. Customers and advisors can access configurations at any time using a unique code. And they're always up to date thanks to dynamic elements that allow you to make changes to individual modules whenever you need.

The Baufritz projects allowed us to strengthen our position in the configurator market. Building on expertise from previous projects, we developed a fully-fledged platform from our configurator seedling that will continue to provide value not just for Baufritz but also future customers.

Sebastian Ruhtz
Software Engineering

Success factors

Be transparent

Projects like this can only be successful with the right amount of both technical and CX expertise. Open and regular communication helped increase both trust and transparency on both sides and made everything much easier when implementing the concept.

Own the product

If a house is going to be created from a digital configurator model, even the smallest details can make a difference. That’s why we made sure we were always following the professional concept and went over buildability criteria with a fine-tooth comb.

Listen to users

Solutions only work if they're accepted, which is why we collect feedback early on in user tests. We then analyze behavior data and translate these insights into conceptual improvements.

Team, facts and contact

Project period

  1. 29.04.2020 - 14.12.2021

Tasks

  1. UX concept
  2. UX writing
  3. 2D und 2.5D visual design
  4. Frontend development
  5. Backend development
  6. DevOp
  7. QA / Testing and control
  8. IT advice

Technologies

  1. Frontend - Vue.js + Nuxt
  2. Backend - Go
  3. Operations und infrastructure - Docker

Partners

  1. LEANATIC // Digitalagentur
  2. Sicor
Contact
Caspar TajbakhshPlatform Program Management
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