Flux Metro: What We Learned

Some of you who have followed our progress from the beginning have recently asked about Metro, one of our first prototype projects, which sought to visualize urban data in 3D.

We wanted to share some background on that initiative and an update.

Our mission at Flux is to build tools that democratize access to information and harness the combination of data, analytics, and visualization to drive sustainable design. We are continually guided by the question:

How might we apply data-driven design principles to help the world meet the urban demand for affordable and sustainable housing?

When we began our journey three years ago, one of the first things we did was speak with hundreds of AEC industry professionals to understand their workflows and challenges. It became clear that landowners and property developers were parties that could facilitate real change in the industry. So we set out to help address some of their problems.

One of the first tasks for a developer is to identify suitable sites that match their development criteria. For each site, the developer has to forecast its economic potential using the zoning ordinances to generate a “buildable envelope.” This task is complicated since it requires understanding and analyzing the restrictions around site coverage, setbacks, height restrictions, and building bulk. Typically conducted by expert architects and land-use attorneys, this analysis can take several weeks for complex urban infill sites.

We set out to build a prototype that would automatically parse, evaluate, and visualize urban site data and zoning laws in 3D. This dynamic prototype became known as Flux Metro.

At its essence, Metro is a online tool that automatically evaluates a site’s development potential. It allows a developer to select a parcel within a 3D virtual model of the city and generate a code-compliant buildable envelope. With Austin, Texas, as our pilot city, we set out to prove we could “digitize” the zoning code and attribute each section to a facet of the buildable envelope. The end result resonated with city officials, who told us they had never seen zoning codes so cleanly visualized and overlaid on top of existing buildings for an entire neighborhood. Metro enabled them to “see” the development potential of a specific neighborhood.

However, as we worked to construct the Austin model, we realized that the approach we used for building Metro was not scalable to thousands of cities around the world. The complexity of gathering data, including the inconsistencies and errors in the datasets, ambiguity of zoning codes (sometimes by design), and the many intricacies involved with working with cities, made achieving our vision of quality and thoroughness cost prohibitive.

It also became clear that there would be significant uncertainty around deciding who or what entity would be responsible for continually updating the data needed to keep the system current. Cities change, sometimes rapidly — zoning codes are rewritten, new buildings are permitted and built, existing buildings are retrofitted, and the use of place evolves. Once data becomes outdated, a tool such as Metro becomes less relevant and reliable.

As a small startup, we realized that taking on data management for the thousands of cities we wanted to model was beyond our capacity and that we needed to identify stakeholders who would be incentivized to take ownership of the data themselves and help us build this “data collective.” As a result, we’ve decided to defer our ambitions for Metro until we have more resources and can find the right partners.

What might Metro look like in the future? One vision might be that of a marketplace for urban data, that allows users to maintain and share data layers that can then be leveraged for urban analytics and simulation, data visualization, and ultimately sustainable development. But we can’t do this alone. We’re looking for visionary doers and shakers who want to embark on this journey with us. If you’d like to help us shape this future, we want to hear from you.

— Nick Chim, Co-founder, CEO, Flux.io