WOODFINE CAPITAL PROJECTS BIM Design System
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AEC muscle-memory — universal interface conventions

Every AEC practitioner who has used Revit, ArchiCAD, BricsCAD, or Bonsai (formerly BlenderBIM) carries a learned interface vocabulary. The Building Design System adopts that vocabulary by default. New users who are AEC-native have zero learning curve on basic navigation; learning is reserved for the parts of app-workplace-bim that are genuinely new (the flat-file vault, the code-as-composable- geometry overlay, the BIM + lease register convergence).

What every AEC tool does the same

(From sub-agent BB.4 Bonsai deep-dive plus sub-agent A's prior-art review, both 2026-04-28.)

| Convention | Across | Building Design System equivalent | |---|---|---| | Spatial tree on the left | Revit Project Browser; ArchiCAD Tree View; Bonsai Outliner; BricsCAD Drawing Explorer | SpatialTree (left rail) | | Properties panel on the right | Revit Properties; ArchiCAD Info Box; Bonsai Properties Editor sidebar | PropertiesPanel (right rail) | | Tree expands to storey level by default, NOT to spaces | All four | SpatialTree[default-expand="storey"] | | Toolbar at top of viewport | All four | Toolbar (top) | | Status bar at bottom (coords + selection) | All four | StatusBar (bottom) | | NavCube top-right of viewport | Revit, BricsCAD; absent in Bonsai (Blender N-panel handles it) | Viewport3D__navcube (top-right) | | Section plane control | All four | SectionPlane | | Filter / visibility controls | All four | SelectionFilter | | Type library / family browser | Revit, ArchiCAD, Bonsai | TypeBrowser |

What app-workplace-bim should mirror from Bonsai

(BB.4 specifically.)

  • Storey-level default expansion of the SpatialTree. Every AEC practitioner navigates at storey level first. Auto-expanding into the spaces level is overwhelming; it adds visual noise without matching mental model.
  • PropertiesPanel as a sidebar, not a modal. Selection-sensitive panel that updates in place; not a popup window.
  • Pset / Qto grouping. Bonsai groups Pset_* property sets into named sections; the Building Design System mirrors that.

What app-workplace-bim should DELIBERATELY NOT inherit from Bonsai

(BB.4 specifically.)

  • Bonsai uses Blender's Outliner panel as the SpatialTree. That works for power users in Bonsai's host environment but it is a Blender-host artifact, not a Bonsai design decision worth carrying forward. The Outliner is a general-purpose scene-graph viewer with no purpose-built expand/collapse, no search-by-space-name, no floor-plan thumbnail preview. app-workplace-bim builds a dedicated SpatialTree widget instead.
  • Blender's modal mode-switching workflow. Edit-mode / Object-mode / Sculpt-mode is a Blender concept that is invisible in pure authoring tools (Revit / ArchiCAD do not expose modal mode-switching to the user). Don't carry forward.
  • Blender's keymap — Numpad-1/3/7 for ±X/±Y/±Z views. Most laptops ship without numpads. Use the convention Revit and BricsCAD use: number keys 1-6 along the top row.

Property managers — the persona that doesn't exist in Bonsai's market

(From the strategic source's "property-manager BIM gap" diagnosis.)

Bonsai targets architects/designers. PointSav's app-workplace-bim targets the FM operator persona that current authoring tools do not address — the property manager who needs to look up a wall's fire rating, attach a work order to a door, link a lease to a space, or check whether a maintenance schedule has expired. The Building Design System adds three workflows that have no Bonsai equivalent:

  1. WorkOrder linking. Attach a work order to an IFC element (per-element YAML sidecar carries the work-order GUID + status + assignee).
  2. Lease linking. Attach a lease record to an IfcSpace (sidecar references the lease entity in the project-bookkeeping vault).
  3. Sensor overlay. Live MQTT-backed sensor readings overlaid on the relevant element in Viewport3D.

These are workplace-unique components and not part of the v0.0.1 universal-component scope; v0.0.2+.

References

  • ~/Foundry/.claude/sub-agent-results/A-bim-design-system-prior-art-2026-04-28.md
  • ~/Foundry/clones/project-bim/.claude/sub-agent-results/BB.4-bonsai-interface-deepdive-2026-04-28.md
  • ~/Foundry/BIM_Buildable Architecture.md — strategic source
  • Bonsai (formerly BlenderBIM) — https://bonsaibim.org