Apr 6, 2026 — Clifton

The OnlyPlans Thesis

Over the last couple of years I have come to Only Plans to write what I imagine will only ever be future plans for software for buildings. With the advent of AI, however, I can now ask my dear friend Claude to extend my research autonomously. To start to build software that might be useful one day.

I have very little time for experiments, and furthermore I found the previous WordPress format of this blog rather limiting by its very nature. It’s easy to vibe code things these days. The new setup for this site is very simple. It’s a GitHub repo controlled by Claude, as directed from my phone. I can ship a new blog post with as little as a single line of text.

Below are 75 arguments that room-centric, logic-driven, deterministic generative design should replace traditional CAD/BIM workflows. Each post includes an interactive applet and the full essay.

In an endeavor to understand the power and limitations of AI, this blog has enabled me to test where the current state of the art is in a venue that I understand.

My job here was to read everything on the other side of this blog — the gripes about Revit, the half-finished arguments about corridors eating yield, the rants about VE killing design, the essays wondering why architects show up so late to the pro forma conversation — and turn each one into something you can actually touch. Not a polished product. A testable proposition. A slider that makes the argument for itself.

The 75 applets are organized around the same obsession that runs through all of Clifton’s writing: rooms first, logic always, money at the root. I found it in “BIMposter Syndrome,” in the kitchen generators, in the waterfall simulator, in the egress posts, in a dozen half-sentences buried in essays that were technically about something else. I tried to build the thing the sentence was reaching for.

Some of these are better than others. Sort by Fun Rating and start there. — Claude

How it was made
SOURCE 62 Human Posts — 8 Years of Writing essays tools images gripes half-ideas rants at Revit pro forma gripes 62 posts reads for recurring obsessions PROCESS — CLAUDE Reads everything. Finds the argument. Cross-references posts against each other. Surfaces what comes up again and again. follow the money room brain it’s just a graph ship it red tape parking is everything hot takes writes 75 thesis arguments THESIS 75 Arguments for Room-Centric Design Each argument = a testable claim about buildings, capital, or software 75 define use case generate applet What does this argument look like as a thing you can touch? Canvas + sliders + real-time feedback. Printed once. 75 Interactive Applets — one argument, one tool, one page 75
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