Turning individual wishes into one unifying solution.
Software & App
Where hundreds of teams work together, CoDesigner brings clarity to complex planning and transforms vast offices into spaces for collaboration.
Client
Haworth, Inc.
Project duration
2016 - today
Technologies
Figma, React/ThreeJS Frontend, Spring Backend
“How many workstations fit in here?” sounds like an easy question, yet in practice it often leads to months of planning.
1
Initial Situation
Office furniture manufacturer Haworth regularly hosts ideation workshops with companies and large organizations to explore how future work environments should be designed. In these workshops, team structures are analyzed, ways of working are discussed, and initial spatial concepts are developed – often using simple, analog methods such as Post-its, printouts, and handwritten notes on floor plans.
The insights gathered during these sessions then serve as a foundation for external architecture firms, which manually create the first digital space layouts. These plans are reviewed, adjusted, and redrawn through several feedback rounds with the client. Even minor changes – for example, when a department wants to switch places or someone requests a different type of desk – create additional effort.
As a result, several weeks or even months often pass between the first idea and the finalized layout.
The Challenge
The main challenge was to translate Haworth’s planning logic and methodology, including all ergonomic guidelines, spacing rules, and workshop practices, into a digital application that remains intuitive and easy to use for everyone.
The goal was ambitious: to create software that allows not only architects and planners but also sales teams and consultants to independently design convincing workspace concepts without requiring specialized knowledge in planning or interior design.
The result should turn a complex and often time-consuming process into a simple, interactive dialogue that makes it possible to design office spaces in real time, explore different scenarios, and involve clients directly in the creative process.
2
First Step: Area Analysis
First things first
Every successful layout begins with a precise understanding of the available space. In CoDesigner, floor plans can be reconstructed to create clean, accurate geometry. The process is independent of CAD systems or faulty data structures, ensuring both stability and precision.
Triangle of Smartness
CoDesigner analyzes imported floor plans using intelligent triangulation algorithms that detect entrances, columns, narrow passages, and wall distances and relate them to one another. This allows the application to automatically determine how much space is truly available and how it can be used most efficiently.
CoDesigner operates on a rule-based system. Design guidelines can be configured, prioritized, and dynamically adapt to their surroundings. Instead of relying on rigid rules, the application uses adaptive parameters that respond to spaces, adjacencies, and local conditions.
Furniture and equipment elements can be imported directly from existing databases, for example as .DXF, .GLTF, or .FBX files, and seamlessly integrated into the layouts.
4
Create furniture groups and define rules
Create custom furniture groups and define how they are placed or combined within a space. You can also set minimum and maximum sizes for individual functional areas, enabling layouts that automatically adapt to room dimensions, usage, and specific requirements.
5
Every team or person counts
CoDesigner supports company-specific structures and workflows. From departments, sub-departments, and teams to headcounts and desk-sharing ratios, CoDesigner visualizes and calculates how many workstations and how much space each unit requires.
Qualitative aspects such as collaboration styles — whether teams work in an interdisciplinary, focused, project-based, or agile manner — can be defined as well. These factors directly influence the selection and arrangement of furniture and the positioning of teams within the floor plan.
For better clarity, all data is displayed in color and clearly labeled within the plan. Corporate data can be conveniently imported or exported as an .XLS file, or created, edited, and expanded manually.
All figures remain editable at any time. Adjustments to team sizes, areas, or workstations immediately update the floor plan layout.
The result is a central, dynamic foundation for planning office spaces that are realistic, data-driven, and flexible.
6
Who is working where?
In CoDesigner, teams can easily be assigned to specific floors, either by drag and drop or automatically through the integrated space optimization.
The system calculates the most efficient allocation, while users can manually redistribute departments and teams at any time to adjust the layout as needed.
This creates a balance between algorithmic efficiency and human decision-making, enabling flexible, data-driven space planning in real time.
7
One Click and everything is ready
Once all data has been entered, a single click is all it takes for CoDesigner to automatically populate the floor plan with departments. Within seconds, the system calculates the most efficient arrangement of teams and spaces, creating a solid foundation for further detailed planning.
All results can then be adjusted manually, allowing individual requirements, spatial preferences, or last-minute changes to be taken into account at any time.
The quality of the layout is displayed in a dashboard, including the number of workstations, total area in square meters, area per workstation, and an overall quality rating of the plan. This ensures that every decision remains measurable and transparent.
8
Precise to the centimeter or guided by intuition? CoDesigner handles both.
Vision with precision
After CoDesigner has generated the floor plan, users can refine the layout to their specific needs. In the precise mode, furniture selection, number of workstations, distances, and corridor widths can all be defined in exact detail.
LENS Tools
With LENS Tools, adjustments take place on a more emotional and strategic level. A spider diagram with the dimensions Collaborate, Create, Control, and Compete serves as the interface element. Depending on where the focus is set, CoDesigner automatically adapts the layout to match the department’s working style.
Behind the scenes, predefined rules determine what each mode of collaboration means in spatial terms, for example whether teams work in a more creative or more cooperative way.
9
Best-case scenario planning through generative design
CoDesigner calculates new, optimized layout variations in seconds rather than hours, each one equally convincing. Every version provides the corresponding performance metrics, visualized in the dashboard. This allows planners, architects, and sales teams to create, adjust, and compare scenarios during live discussions and make well-informed decisions in real time.
This combination of speed and human evaluation expertise sets CoDesigner apart from purely automated tools.
10
From test fitting to bill of materials
Once the test fitting is complete, the project can be exported in various formats such as .DXF, .PDF, .XLS, or pCon files.
All relevant information for ordering, documentation, or further processing is immediately available.
This turns the digital design into a directly usable foundation for planning, procurement, and implementation.
Bring your idea to life with us.
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