Know how your building feels before it's built.

Draw a floor plan, fill it with people, and watch a day unfold. Tell Ella what's not working and she'll change the plan.

Join the waitlist

The problem

Most buildings meet their people on opening day.

By then, the corridor that jams at the bell, the exit nobody finds when the alarm sounds, the toilet nobody can reach without steps, the hours lost to long walks… they're built in concrete. Fixing them costs months, money, or both.

  1. The bell rings.

    Corridors that jam at break time.

  2. Which way out?

    Exits people don't find.

  3. When the alarm sounds.

    One exit takes everyone, while the others sit empty.

  4. Step-free?

    Routes that stop at a step.

  5. Hours, quietly lost.

    Long walks to the toilet, the printer and the meeting room, every single day.

  6. Too bright. Too loud.

    Glare on screens and noise that makes focus hard.

Why Nine Arches

In the hills near Ella, a railway needed to cross a valley.

The line curves high above the tea, where a bridge would have to be strong, beautiful and right for the people riding over it.

Completed in 1919, it was built by local workers under British engineers, from concrete, stone and brick.

Local legend says it was built without steel, and credits a village builder, P. K. Appuhami.

Told in Ella as a legend; the full history is debated.

About 91 metres long and 24 metres high, it's still carrying trains more than a century later.

Careful design and skilled hands, for the people who use it. That's what we're building for.

Nine Arches tests a building with the people who will use it, before it's built, so it can work as well on opening day as that bridge still does today.

How it works

Let the people in early.

Four steps, one plan, and a day of people telling you what works.

Nine Arches
Trace a plan image StaffVisitorsStep-free 0 people 08:00
Longest wait9minBefore
Longest wait2minAfter · −7 min

Meet Ella

Tell Ella what's wrong. Watch her fix it.

You don't need to know how a simulation works. Describe the problem in your own words. Ella reads the plan, watches the people, proposes a change, and shows you exactly what she did, before anything is applied.

named after the town by the bridge
Hillside School · Block B 10:20
Time to clear the corridor—
Longest wait at the stair—
Step-free routes—

  • You stay in charge.

    Ella proposes; you apply. Every change is listed and can be undone.

  • She shows her work.

    You see what she changed on the plan, and how the people respond.

  • She's honest about limits.

    Ella tells you what's an estimate, and what to check with an engineer or local code.

Step inside

Walk the corridors before they're built.

Every plan is also a building you can step into. Look over the whole block, walk it at eye height, or follow one student out to break. These are the same people as in the plan: sitting, queuing and walking their own way.

10:30
Building Hillside School…
Hillside School · Block B
Drag to turn the building. Click anyone to follow them.Swipe sideways to turn the building. Tap anyone to follow them. 3× speed.

What you can see

Every way a building can work, or not.

Watch the day as it happens, then look at it through different lenses.

People moving

Every person walks their own way, at their own pace, to the places their day takes them.

Crowding

See where it gets tight, and when.

Waiting

Queues at lifts, counters, toilets and doors.

Step-free access

Who can get where, without a step.

Light and glare

Where it's dim, and where the sun is in someone's eyes.

Noise

Where it's loud enough to make focus hard.

Alarm

When the alarm sounds.

Watch everyone leave, see which exits they choose, and how long the last person takes.

Everyone out in3 min 40 s

Beyond the floor plan

Not just what happens. What to do about it.

Nine Arches finds fixes, handles whole shopping malls, puts your building on its real street, and shows how sure it is.

Find improvements

Ask for a goal. Get ranked fixes.

Tell Ella what you want, like less walking or shorter queues. She suggests several changes, Nine Arches runs each one on the same people, and the best is marked. If a fix makes something else worse, it says so.

  • Each fix tested on the same day, so the comparison is fair
  • "Clearly better" or "within noise", never a guess
  • Show it on the plan, compare, or apply in one click
Malls and shops

A whole mall, floor by floor.

Stairs, escalators and lifts join the floors. Shops and food courts draw people in, arrivals follow a weekday or a weekend, and crowds slow everyone down. See how much foot traffic passes every shop front.

  • Foot traffic past and into each unit, with a range
  • Wheelchair users, older adults, children and first-timers, each their own way
  • Where rent tiers should fall, coming next
Your real site

Put it on the street it will stand on.

Drop a pin and Nine Arches brings in the neighbouring buildings and roads from OpenStreetMap, plus a typical day's weather. Shadows move with the sun, road noise reaches the façade, and the glare and the dim rooms show up in the results.

  • Neighbours' shadows on your windows through the day
  • Road noise and typical local weather
  • Move and turn the building on the map
Evidence and ranges

Honest about what it knows.

Every behaviour has a range and a label saying where it came from: research, your own estimate, or something measured. A guess shows up as uncertainty in the results, instead of looking as solid as a measurement.

  • Results as ranges, from repeated runs
  • See which assumptions matter most, so you know what is worth measuring
  • Change a value and say why

Any building

From a house to a stadium.

If people use it, you can test it. Homes, schools, clinics, hospitals, offices, shops, libraries, hotels, stations, factories, stadiums… draw it, fill it with the people who'll use it, and watch.

    On site

    On the real map, under the real sun.

    Pin your building on the map. Nine Arches brings in the streets and neighbouring buildings around it, so you can move and turn it into place, see what it replaces, and watch the shadows cross it through the day and the year.

    • Neighbours, live.

      Move your building and the ones it would replace step aside, in real time.

    • Sun and shade.

      The sun's real path for that place and date, with shadows from the buildings around you.

    • Real weather.

      Typical cloud, temperature and rain for the site, from historical records.

    Sun 07:0021 March
    Nine Arches

    Who it's for

    Everyone looking at the same building.

    Drawings mean different things to different people. A day of people moving through a plan means the same thing to everyone.

    • Architects.

      Test ideas while they're still lines. Show clients why a corridor needs to be wider, not just tell them.

    • Builders and developers.

      Catch the expensive problems before they're poured. Compare options with the same people, side by side.

    • Clients and the people who'll use it.

      See your building working before you've paid for it. No training needed: press play, ask Ella.

    A building should work beautifully for the people who use it. We'd like you to know it does, before it's built.

    • Estimates you can check.

      People's behaviour, light and sound are modelled, not measured. We tell you what each number assumes, so you can check it, and we never dress estimates up as predictions.

    • The same result every time.

      Run the same day twice and you get the same day. Change one thing, and you see exactly what that change did.

    • Ella proposes; you decide.

      Nothing changes in your building until you apply it, and anything applied can be undone.

    Ready when you are

    Test your next building with the people who'll use it.

    The app isn't live yet. Leave your name and email. Your email app will open with a note to us, ready to send.