Use this when you want to test a garden-style apartment site plan within a flow, for example checking how many walk-up buildings, how much parking and what kind of drive fit on a parcel before you draw anything by hand. The Site Plan node lays out rows of apartment buildings, a ring road, branch roads and parking from a site boundary, and the whole layout updates when you change a building size or a separation.

Category: Generative

Kind: Operation

Description: Lays out garden-style apartment buildings, roads and parking on a site.

Inputs

This node's settings come from the paired Site Plan Parameters node through the T connector. You can't wire a value straight into a single setting. To drive one setting from your flow, override it with a Write Property node between the Site Plan Parameters node and T.

Name	Abbreviation	Type	Access	Description
Features	F[]	Feature	List	The site polygon to lay out. Site Plan uses the first polygon in the list.
Transform	T	Object	Item	The settings from the Site Plan Parameters node.

Outputs

Name	Abbreviation	Type	Access	Description
Footprint	F[]	Feature	List	The building footprints.
Road centerline	R[]	Feature	List	The centerlines of the ring road and branch roads.
Parking	P[]	Feature	List	One polygon covering every parking bay and drive aisle.

Every output keeps the site's properties. Site Plan doesn't assign usages, so the outputs come out as plain geometry.

Warnings and errors

Message	Cause	Fix
`No input provided to garden`	Nothing is connected to the input, or the connected node returns no geometry.	Connect a polygon to the input, and check that the upstream node is returning geometry.
`The site shape produces multiple disconnected zones. Results may be incomplete or unpredictable — consider simplifying the boundary.`	The drive splits the site into more than one separate area.	Simplify the site boundary, or switch some edges between Parking and Building.

If the node returns nothing and shows no message, the site may be too small for the setbacks. Lower the setbacks or building size, or use a larger site.

How to

Open the flow in the Flow Builder and add the Site Plan node.
Connect your site polygon, for example from Get Site Boundary or a drawn geometry, to the Features connector.
Add the Site Plan Parameters node and connect it to the T connector.
- Click Edit Defaults on the Site Plan Parameters node to set the starting values for the flow. Turn on Publish so the settings show in the properties palette.
Connect the outputs to Write Features, or to more nodes to give them usages. See the example below.
Select a geometry that uses the flow and edit its settings in the Properties Palette. Click the revert icon on the settings group to go back to the defaults.

Connect the Site Plan Parameters node

The Site Plan node requires the Site Plan Parameters node connected to its T connector. Without it, the Site Plan node produces no output.

Site Plan Parameters settings object

The Site Plan Parameters node creates a set of inputs in the Properties Palette for anyone using the flow to fill out. It converts those inputs into a plain JSON object and sends it to the Site Plan node through the T connector. The object has type set to garden and the settings inside parameters. The values below are the built-in defaults.

{
  "type": "garden",
  "parameters": {
    "buildingLength": 54.864,
    "buildingWidth": 21.336,
    "primarySetback": 12.192,
    "secondarySetback": 6.096,
    "driveSetback": 3.048,
    "siteSetback": 6.096,
    "parkingDepth": 5,
    "roadWidth": 3
  }
}

The Site Plan Parameters settings in the Properties Palette show lengths, areas, and volumes in your project units. The JSON always stores them in meters, square meters, and cubic meters, so a value you write into it with Write Property must use those units too.

To drive one setting from elsewhere in your flow, override it with a Write Property node. Put Write Property between the Site Plan Parameters node and the T connector, and set Property to a path like parameters.buildingLength.

Site Plan settings

The Site Plan Parameters node adds these settings to the properties palette. Every setting is a length in your project units. Hover the info icon next to a setting to see a diagram of what it measures.

Building
- Building Length (default 180 ft / 54.864 m): the long side of each building footprint.
- Building Width (default 70 ft / 21.336 m): the short side, or depth, of each building footprint.
Separations
- Primary Facade Separation (default 40 ft / 12.192 m) and Secondary Facade Separation (default 20 ft / 6.096 m): the gaps between neighboring buildings in a row. When Building Length is longer than Building Width, buildings in a row are spaced by the secondary separation. Otherwise they are spaced by the primary separation.
- Parking Separation (default 10 ft / 3.048 m): the gap between a building and the parking in front of it.
- Perimeter Setback (default 20 ft / 6.096 m): how far the whole layout sits in from the site boundary.
Parking and roads
- Parking Depth (default 5 m / 16.4 ft): the depth of the parking bays on each side of the drive.
- Road Width (default 3 m / 9.8 ft): the width of the drive aisle. Ring road corners are rounded by the road width.
Parking/Building Edge: choose, edge by edge, whether a site edge gets a row of buildings or parking. Every edge starts as Parking.
Add Road: draw your own road across the site. The button shows how many roads you have, up to 10. When you reach 10, the button turns off and shows "Maximum of 10 roads reached".

How Site Plan lays out a site

Site Plan insets the site by the Perimeter Setback.
Along each edge set to Building, it places a row of buildings inside the setback.
From each edge set to Parking, it builds the parking and drive zone. The drive sits in from the edge by the Perimeter Setback, a building width and the Parking Separation, so a row of buildings fits between the boundary and the parking.
It runs a ring road down the middle of that zone, with parking on both sides. Site Plan keeps the ring only when an island of land is left inside it.
It places a second ring of buildings around the island inside the ring road.
It adds branch roads at inside corners of the drive where there is room to reach more buildings, then joins all the parking into one polygon.

Add a road to a Site Plan

Draw a road where you want one. Select the site, click Add Road in the Site Plan settings, and draw a line across the site. Site Plan snaps each end of the road onto the ring road and lines the road with parking on both sides. A site holds up to 10 drawn roads.

Edit mode

Select the site and press Shift+A to show the Site Plan handles on the map. The command is called Edit flow handles in the command bar.

Click the arrow next to a site edge to switch it between parking and buildings. The arrow turns around to show the edge has switched.
Drag the orange circle on a building edge to slide that row of buildings along the edge. Use it to line buildings up with an entry or to clear a corner.

Example: model a garden-style apartment community

Site Plan outputs plain geometry. Use these steps to turn it into a full model with usages, dwellings and parking counts.

Connect Footprint to an Apply Usage node with the usage set to your garden-style apartment usage. Every building takes that usage's defaults, like color, levels, dwellings and costs.
Connect Road centerline to another Apply Usage node with the usage set to your road usage.
Connect Parking to a Parking Lots node to fill the parking polygon with stalls and islands.
Connect the results to Write Features.

To massage the building shapes into detailed massing with corners, end caps and units, send the footprints through the Skeleton Editor and Subdivide Rectangles nodes.