Meet Kend, a AI-powered architectural assistant

Startup Poliark delivers architectural plans from text prompts.

Architects need an AI assistant. Poliark, an eight-person startup, totally gets it. The new company offers Kend, an AI-based 3D and 2D architectural modeler that runs on the cloud. The designer types in prompts like those to spur image generators such as DALL-E and Leonardo.ai now in vogue. The prompt can be something such as, “Design a three-bedroom one-story house” and then the software outputs just that. But unlike image generators, Kend outputs dimensionally accurate and square floorplans and 3D models that architects can actually use. A bit more tweaking of prompts gets Kend to output plans with a level of detail accuracy to LOD 300.

Kend runs from any web browser; there’s no software to download or install. The interface is clean and slick. Unlike big CAD software vendors that give lip service to sustainability, Poliark’s environmental consciousness is built in. Kend contains a material library that updates the amount of carbon locked up in construction material as a building is designed.

Designers might think they’ve seen AI assistance from a CAD vendor. Autodesk’s Forma lays out buildings and configures interior. But Poliark is real generative AI, not a generative design tool or optimizer. It uses a large language model (LLM), stable diffusion (for rendering), and natural language processing (NLP).

By simply entering an email address, designers can use Kend in its beta version. Poliark plans to launch a premium version for which it will charge.

In a Zoom meeting with CEO Eda Erol, we learn more about the company’s founder and origins. Erol has a BFA in architecture from Bilkent University in Turkey, and a Masters in GIS Technology from the University of Arizona. She speaks to us from the Techstars Boston Accelerator offices. Poliark was one of 12 companies selected by seed investment firm Techstars, for 13 weeks of mentoring at the firm’s Boston location.

In fact, Poliark has received $500K in investment from a total of four investors — two in Turkey, one in the UK, and one in Switzerland, according to Crunchbase.

In the next six to 12 months, Erol wants to improve the product — so it can understand and apply local codes, for example. After that, the company may go for another funding round to grow the company to 20 employees. Erol takes a surprisingly balanced view of roles in her new company. Most tech startups are top heavy with developers, but only three of eight of her employees are developers. Even rarer for startups, Poliark has a publicist.

Erol draws on her experience in architecture and hopes her time in the Boston area, a hotbed of venture capital second only to the Silicon Valley, will provide her fledgling company booster rockets.

It’s early days for Poliark. The product is still raw. Prompts are answered after long pauses and the believability of some results isn’t stunning . Unlike chat GPTs that can command credulity even when wrong because of the way results are presented, Kend’s results are naked and exposed. One prompt for “house with attached garage” puts the garage in the center of the house. But Poliark is as a text-to-model transformer one of the first of its kind, and a step in the right direction — not just a poke at Big CAD and their sycophants who insist that text to model is a pipe dream.

With the massive wave of interest in AI, Poliark is as sure a bet as a startup can be for venture capitalists looking to capitalize AI. It may not be of interest to big CAD vendors who have plans of their own or secretly hope AI is a passing fad.

The only reason Poliark is not the subject of a bidding war already is that many VCs think architecture a niche market or don’t know how to spell CAD. I am reminded of Autodesk founder John Walker, an electrical engineer and developer, may he rest in peace, who also wondered 35 years ago if a 2D drawing program could be a business. It wasn’t until his Comdex booth was swamped and when his floppy disks flew off the shelves that he realized he had a hit on his hands. Then there was the second design revolution.

Perhaps Poliark could spark the next design revolution.