Often, a single floor in a mixed-use building may encompass multiple typologies. For instance, the ground level may contain both Retail frontage and community space for a residential tower above.

This simple guide will walk you through how to design a building with mixed-use floors.

1. Identify the Floorplate


It may be helpful to create an outline to align your building shape with a polygon, especially if the planned shape is irregular. This can help you keep your building aligned floor to floor.

Use the More Polygon to create your building outline on the map.

Create your custom polygon by clicking at desired points.

Click on the original point again to close the shape and exit the tool.

There is no need to apply a Usage to this shape as it is purely for guidance.

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2. Edit Usages


The Usages in your project may already be reflective of the typologies you want to use. If so, skip to step 3.

Usages can be edited and created from the Usage Editor.

To edit assumptions click on the Edit Usages button in the top left.

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To create a new Usage, copy an existing Usage. Select that Usage from the dropdown, then click “Create From …”

Add Properties by clicking “Add Property.”

Edit the properties to match your company’s or project’s assumptions and graphics preferences.

To change which Usage you're working on, click on the dropdown.

Edit the existing properties to match your company’s or project’s assumptions and graphics preferences.

Add more Properties by clicking “Add Property”

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3. Draw The Outlines

Outline each usage area within the floor. Hold down the S key on the keyboard to snap corners to your polygon outline or to other Usage geometry. Hold down Shift to snap to an orthographic angle.

Giraffe offers 3 methods of generating building geometry:

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Rectangle