Before I design anything on an existing building, site or territory, I measure and model what is really there, so that the project, the quotation and the works never rest on assumed drawings.
← Yuri Leonardo WorksProcess 02 of ten
Start from what exists
Germinating since 2003, in Portable House Applied in 11 works, 2003–2026 Today: Construction Documents Engine, Space Designer, Operations Platform, Site Control
I design from what exists, measured, never from drawings that assume it. What is really there, a house, the trees of a site, a region, sets the project before anything is drawn.
The research question
What does a project gain when it is drawn from what was measured, not from what the drawings say?
I The site sets the plan · 2011
For the Marcano Museum, in the Botanical Garden of Santo Domingo, the 107 trees already on the site fixed the plan. None was felled: the building became a horizontal spiral among them, organised around three courtyards.
II The house as it stands · 2026
A house in Santo Domingo, to be let to groups of six to ten guests. The first works, planned as minor repairs, turned out to be the demolition of a gazebo and a new platform for a spa. So the design starts from what was actually built, not from what was planned: the existing house was modelled exactly as it stands, and every quotation by trade takes its dimensions from that model.
III Measured, payment by payment · 2026
At a holiday villa in Punta Cana, the repairs followed the real condition of the house. Its expense record, payment by payment, later gave an approximate measure of suppliers' real lead times, which went into the works programme of the house in Santo Domingo.
What you can hire today
What already exists, measured and modelled before anything is designed, so that the project never guesses. On a house remodelling in progress, my Construction Documents Engine reads the model of the existing house by script and issues quotation dossiers by trade, every dimension taken from the model.
Formalised in: Construction Documents Engine · Space Designer · Operations Platform · Site Control
Working on something that already exists? Start with a reading of it. The first reading is free, and I answer within 48 hours.
Apply this to your project →Working in English, Spanish and French · Systems and documentation delivered in your team's language
Revised 2026-10-26 · Source: the ten processes register (procesos.json), process PR02 · Revision c88c8d1153