The repetition model.

The two counts

The number comes out of two separate counts, and they multiply. Mixing them is what makes a development look more expensive than it is.

How many different designs there are

A tower with four apartment types is four designs. Each one after the first adds 60%, not 100%: the building system, the criteria and the detailing are already resolved and are not paid for again. Up to eight per project.

How many times each one repeats

Twenty identical houses are one design repeated twenty times. This is where it drops the most, because the design is done and each repetition only adapts to its site and its orientation.

And then they multiply

Four types across fifteen units are not sixty designs: they are four designs, each repeated fifteen times. The scale below runs inside each type, not across the project total.

The scale

This scale runs on top of the published rate per square meter. The first unit is designed in full; from there on it is placed.

100% · The first unit

Everything is decided here: the building system, the criteria, the detailing. It is the only one designed in full, and it is what makes the rest come down.

40% · The next four

Same type, another site. It is placed and adapted to its orientation and its ground, not redrawn.

30% · The next five

The decisions are made and tested on the previous ones. What is left is fitting them.

20% · The next ten

Ten more units for the cost of two.

10% · The next thirty

Thirty units for the cost of three. The design is done and verified.

7.5% · 51 to 60

The last tier. The scale counts up to sixty units per type.

For units of up to 100 m², sixty units of the same type add up to 9.85 times the value of one, so each unit lands at 16% of the first. For larger units the design does not drop below USD 2.70 per square meter of the development, and the savings are somewhat smaller. Methodological reference: Colombia's Decree 2090 of 1989, Category F.

A case

A concrete case, calculated by the same engine that quotes your project: 120 m² units, all three disciplines, standard complexity, new build.

• One unit, one type: USD 2,000 (per unit: USD 2,000)
• Fifteen units, one type: USD 10,200 (per unit: USD 680)
• Sixty units, four types: USD 28,560 (per unit: USD 476)

This is an estimate and not an offer: the final price is set in the contract you sign, based on the proposal you accept, after reviewing the real scope and area.

The limits

The type has to be the same

The scale runs inside each type. If the program, the areas or the system change, it is another design and it starts its own count at 100%.

The scale counts up to sixty

A type repeated more than sixty times is quoted individually on the call: there is no cheaper tier hidden further up.

Eight types per project

That is the cap. A development with more than eight different designs stops being a series and is quoted separately.

What does not come down

Modeling the existing building on a remodel (bringing your drawings into the model) is outside the scale: that work is redone every time.

How to check it

The area goes in the calculator on the companies page; the different designs and the units are asked at booking, and out of that comes the written estimate with the scope included.