VirAps (Virtual Apartment System)

VirAps hopes to allow for a new degree of customization in multifamily housing.
From: Jarmo Suominen

The VIRAPS-system is a database diven Web-based application allowing inhabitants to participate in the planning and design of their homes and immediate environments Flows of information and decision-making systems in the building process are relatively complex and involve a large number of players from politics, planning, financing and industry. The consumers have, until lately, had very little influence on the outcome of the process, mainly only when they've been a part of an experimental housing project. The consumers have, however, become more vocal in expressing their desires and construction companies are facing the problem of accommodating these wishes into the tight schedules of the existing building process. Furthermore, the further down the building process the changes occur, the more expensive they are for the consumer and the more pressure they put on communication within the process. Therefore the VIRAPS system has been constructed with two goals in mind: firstly to support decision-making process in the consumer end and secondly to facilitate reorganization and communication between the different companies in the building chain.
The VIRAPS-system is divided into to sections: a business-to-business section and consumer section. The business-to-customer side allows consumers make a number of choices concerning their future apartments based on the material presented on the VIRAPS Service www-pages. The VIRAPS databank gathers this material from the public sections of databanks of companies and institutions involved in the building process. From the professional point of view, the consumer becomes just another information producer within the whole building process. In the business-to-customer section choices can be made on three levels: 01.The Environment (city, area, neighborhood) 02.The Building (immediate environment, location in floor and plan, apartment size) and 03.The Apartment (organization, materials, finishes and fixtures). This division is supported by consumer studies on one hand and observations on the building chain on the other. On the professional side this division fits well with the building schedules, where certain windows of opportunity open at certain times. This is especially important in making the choices for apartment insides and possibly for the immediate environment. However, It is not enough to give consumers the freedom of choice and design. An apartment is a sum of technical, functional and aesthetic considerations. These considerations have to be met both to ensure immediate consumer satisfaction and resale value of an apartment. Therefore consumers need quite extensive support to bring their everyday experience of living in an apartment to a level where it can be used to make informed choices about their future environment. The consumer choices are fed back into the professional branch, where it will be used for two purposes. First, to design and build the kind of apartment the customer wants to buy or rent, and second to give general information of the customer preferences to the institutions (city planning) and companies participating in the system. This information helps the municipalities to target their planning and development efforts to better answer the needs of their citizens. It also allows the companies (such as developers of kitchen cabinet manufacturers) to adjust their production to the demand. The VIRAPS-system is built on using existing systems for the handling of CAD,GIS,text and pictorial information.