Flood of Feasibility: What web-based tools mean for the Future of design
READING TIME
8:05
MIN
Oct 23, 2025
Architecture is finally having its browser moment. For decades, we’ve tolerated desktop BIM software that felt more like a punishment than a tool: installations, patches, file corruption, and workflows that seemed allergic to speed. As Architizer recently put it, BIM is “overdue for a revolution.”
That revolution is often labeled BIM 2.0. And it comes in many flavors. Some tools are tuned for urban design, others for spatial planning or interiors, others for model coordination or review. In this article, we’re focusing on the feasibility layer of this ecosystem: the messy, high-stakes front end of design where projects are framed, tested, and argued into being.
Spacio, Arcol, Giraffe, Snaptrude, Forma, Architechtures, TestFit, and many others; different emphases, but united in ethos. They are web-first, collaboration-native, and centered on feasibility, especially massing and site development. These tools don’t replace Revit or ArchiCAD (yet). They do something more interesting: they reshape how teams begin.
Nicolas Martinez and Pia Pedroso at Autodesk University 2025, Nashville
AU 2025: The incumbent responds
At Autodesk University 2025, the signs were clear: feasibility has become its own battlefield. Autodesk announced that Forma is now two products (Site Design and Building Design) both cloud-based, both designed to feed back into Revit. In the same keynote, Neural CAD was shown generating interior layouts from Autodesk’s vast data archives, and a Revit-aware Assistant promised fewer late-night hunts through standards manuals.
The message was blunt: no more files passed like hot potatoes. Forma connects directly into Revit, syncing changes both ways. A daylight study or wind analysis runs in the browser, and the results appear instantly in the desktop model. This is Autodesk conceding that architects want the same thing the startups offer: collaboration that happens on the model, not around it.
And we’ve seen it in action. During a design slam, Forma’s interface felt intuitive, if still a little rough around the edges. Teams ran a Grasshopper routine in parallel, streaming daylight and noise analyses live into the same model while generating impressive browser-based renders. The potential was obvious—even if embodied carbon analysis still lagged.
If the startups showed what’s possible, AU 2025 proved the incumbents are listening.
Testing the Future, Borrowing from Software
At /slantis, we don’t just watch these announcements—we test them. Our version of the Ship in Six framework, runs any new tool through six weeks of structured experiments:
WEEK ONE: Setup and Onboarding
WEEK TWO: Collaboration
WEEK THREE: Interoperability
WEEK FOUR: Metrics
WEEK FIVE: Client testing
WEEK SIX: Harvest!
The point isn’t to crown winners. It’s to understand how tools behave under the pressure of real projects. Some dazzle in week one and collapse at interoperability week. Others look underwhelming at first, but quietly reshape how we present ideas to clients. Every failure is as valuable as success because it sharpens our instincts for what truly matters: does this tool help a multidisciplinary team move faster toward clarity?
This rhythm has made us quick readers of the ecosystem. We’ve learned to spot which features are transformative (live metrics, multiplayer editing, instant boards) and which are just cosmetic (AI-generated forms that impress no one in week two). Testing has become a cultural practice, not just R&D.
slantis tool testing Notion database within our R&D projects framework
What the tools share
Each platform has its own character: Spacio’s sketch-like clarity, Giraffe’s urban overlays, Snaptrude’s modular workflows, Arcol’s collaborative whiteboard, Forma’s analytics, Architechtures’ AI-driven housing typologies, TestFit’s real estate solver. But the shared DNA is the real story:
Web-first: nothing to install, just open a tab. You’re freed from RAM bottlenecks and server dependencies, though speed still depends on your internet line. The real magic is not maxing out your computer every time you orbit a mass.
Collaboration-native: multiple cursors, comments, and shared iterations are defaults, not add-ons.
Feasibility-focused: designed for the stage when ideas are cheap but decisions are costly.
Costs are shifting, not disappearing: Forma comes bundled in the AEC Collection, but extensions like Finch or ArcGIS add new price tags. Web doesn’t mean free.
This convergence matters more than individual features. It points to a practice where feasibility studies are no longer solitary acts of modeling and spreadsheets, but collective acts of design.
A revolution that creeps, not crashes
When we talk about revolutions in architecture, we often expect grand ruptures: CAD replacing drafting boards, BIM replacing CAD. But the shift to the web feels different. It isn’t a crash; it’s a creep. Feasibility tools start by handling “minor” tasks: massing studies, quick site analyses, option comparisons; and then quietly expand.
Architizer’s “overdue revolution” title captures the mood. Traditional BIM tools gave us detail and rigor, but they never truly cracked the early stages. That vacuum is where web-native tools thrive. They don’t try to be everything; they try to be the first thing you open.
One critique of legacy BIM was its resistance to fluid, complex forms. Many of these new platforms tackle that directly, some through sketch-based parametrics, others by linking live to Grasshopper. They’re not flawless, but they raise the bar on what’s possible in feasibility without weeks of setup.
And once teams get used to designing in the browser, collaborating in real time, it’s hard to go back.
web based and real time collaboration. image credits: arcol
Collaboration as default
One of the biggest shifts is cultural: the expectation that collaboration should be live, visible, and continuous. Other industries already take this for granted: Figma in product design, Google Docs in writing, Notion in knowledge work. Architecture is finally catching up.
These tools allow architects, engineers, and clients to think together in real time. Instead of waiting for next week’s coordination meeting, changes appear instantly. Instead of endless PDFs, a living model becomes the conversation.
In a recent sprint, one of our teams noted that “the model already held the conversation.” That sentence sums up the change. Communication is no longer something you prepare after design. Communication is design.
A critical aside
Of course, skepticism is healthy. A flashy AI-generated floor plan won’t make a weak idea strong. Multiplayer editing won’t fix bad coordination. And no platform is immune to bloat; today’s agile startup can easily become tomorrow’s slow-moving incumbent.
But dismissing the trend misses the bigger picture. These tools aren’t promising to replace architects. They’re promising to make feasibility (the most under-resourced phase) smarter, faster, and more collective.
image credit: finch
The future of the studio
So what does this mean for architects? First, that feasibility is no longer only a solitary sketch on trace paper. It’s becoming a collaborative performance in the browser. Second, that architects are shifting roles: from solo authors of options to curators of possibilities, facilitators of cross-disciplinary decision-making.
The danger is fragmentation: too many platforms, too many logins. But interoperability is improving. Open standards like IFC and initiatives like Speckle mean data flows more easily than before. The ecosystem may stay diverse, but it doesn’t have to be siloed.
And perhaps that’s the real lesson: revolutions don’t always centralize; sometimes they diversify.
The bottom line
At slantis, we’ll keep testing -six weeks at a time- because each tool is a stand-in for a bigger question: how do we want to work together? How do we balance speed with care? How do we turn feasibility from a set of disconnected files into a shared act of design?
The tools will evolve. Some will vanish. Even Autodesk, the 800-pound gorilla, is now conceding ground with Forma. But the direction is clear: the browser is becoming the studio, and collaboration is no longer an aspiration. It’s the baseline.
No, a new tool won’t automatically make a weak design good. But it might help a good team make a good design great: by letting them ship ideas faster, test them smarter, and design together.
Written by Maria Eugenia Puppo, Future Practice Director at slantis
