Welcome to this week’s edition of Architecture Insights. A weekly newsletter on artificial intelligence for architects, landscape architects, and designers.

You can now create cost estimates and quantity takeoffs, right from ChatGPT.

Update: As of April 2024 ChatGPT has eliminated the plugin function, you can now access the features mentioned below with the GPT Store.

This Week In AI

OpenAI comes out with the GPT store.

You can now discover different custom GPTs that cater to specific use cases. For instance, the Building Safety Act bot is trained to assist with building and safety related prompts for your project.

How To Use ChatGPT Plugins

Once you’re ready go to your Settings → Beta features → Turn Plug-Ins ON.

Go to the plugin store to explore the list of available plugins.

Install and the rest is done, make sure you are using version 4.0.

Example Use Case: Cost Estimates

The ‘Make A Sheet’ plug-in is useful for converting your prompts into workable Excel or Google Sheets files.

With this plugin let's create a cost estimate for the landscape phase of our project.

The prompt we can start with:

“Could you create an empty table with four columns - Item, Unit Price, Quantity, and Cost? I would also like to add 10 rows to the table with the following materials - Asphalt, Concrete, Unit Pavers, Culverts, Catchbasins, Waste Receptacles, Hydroseed, Grading, Retaining Walls, Disposal and Excavation.”

The result:

Note that most of these items are calculated at different units. i.e. asphalt may come in at a square metre cost, catchbasins at a ‘per/each’ cost, and disposal and excavation in cubic metres.

Assign a number to each material and specify which numbers correspond to which measurement type at the end of your prompt. The more line items you have for costing the more helpful this becomes.

Re-prompt ChatGPT and add:

“For materials with 1 after them, put (sq.m) in the Unit Type column. For materials with 2 after them, put (each) in the Unit Type column. For materials with 3 after them, put (cube.m) in the Unit Type column.”

Assign a corresponding number to each item.

Your prompt may look something like this:

“Could you create an empty table with five columns - Item, Unit Type, Unit Price, Quantity, and Cost? I would also like to add 10 rows to the table with the following materials - (1) Asphalt, (1) Concrete, (1) Unit Pavers, (2) Culverts, (2) Catchbasins, (2) Waste Receptacles, (1) Hydroseed, (2) Grading, (2) Retaining Walls, (3) Disposal and Excavation. For materials with 1 after them, put (sq.m) in the Unit Type column. For materials with 2 after them, put (each) in the Unit Type column. For materials with 3 after them, put (cube.m) in the Unit Type column.”

Follow the same method if you want to add pricing and quantities.

Once your table is ready type another prompt asking to export the table into a csv. file.

It will be available to download.

Resources

How to access and use the GPT store.

Go to ‘Explore GPTs’ at the top left-hand side of your screen and you should see the following page once there.

Here you can search existing GPTs.

You can also create a custom GPT by hitting the ‘+ Create’ button on the right.

ChatGPT will guide you through a series of questions to help understand your desired bot functionality and how it should respond to your prompts.

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Until next Friday,

A.I.