TVS Forays into Design Automation with Skema

• Early workshops: a day vs. weeks
• Pioneer partner in Skema rollout
• Feeds directly back into Revit

TVS had already been developing its own conceptual-design tools in-house when it discovered Skema, and quickly recognized the platform as further along than what the firm was building itself. As Michael Hodge, TVS's Digital Practice Quality Principal, explained: "We saw Skema directly in line with what we were developing, but more advanced. We had been looking at: how could we expedite the design process by way of design assistance tools?"

Skema layers a dynamic, electronic approach onto the traditional foundation of paper sketching, and includes built-in features like cove.tool for environmental and sustainability analyses such as daylight and sunlight exposure on building facades. For TVS designers earlier in their careers, that responsiveness matters beyond speed alone. As Karissa Beveridge, a TVS Design Professional, put it: "As an entry-level designer, sometimes it is difficult to see my work in our drawings making a difference in the world around me. Using Skema will give me a greater design agility, reduce repetitive tasks, and allow me to more quickly make a meaningful difference in the design of large-scale healthcare spaces."

TVS's conceptual design phase involved a lot of mundane, repetitive work that pulled time and energy away from higher-value creative decisions. The firm had already been trying to build its own tools to speed up this phase, which meant the challenge wasn't just process speed, but reaching a level of sophistication in design automation that an internal effort hadn't yet achieved.

Getting there also meant TVS had to share historical project data from Revit so Skema could build out its design catalogs, a meaningful trust and integration step for a firm signing on as one of Skema's pioneer partners, rather than simply buying an off-the-shelf tool.

Before Skema, conceptual design at TVS followed a well-worn but slow path: paper sketching translated into electronic sketching, largely by hand and without the kind of rapid, data-driven iteration Skema offers. TVS had also begun building its own internal conceptual-design tools, but the effort was assembling capabilities Skema already provided in a single, more advanced platform.

As Michael Hodge described the shift once Skema was introduced: "You can do in a day what would have taken weeks. It not only gives you a conceptual model; you can also skin and envelope that building quickly and move that back into Revit." That gap between days and weeks captures how much manual iteration the previous process required.

The clearest measured impact TVS has reported is time: in early workshop testing, Michael Hodge said the firm could do in a day what previously took weeks using conceptual design workflows before Skema. That single comparison, rather than a formal percentage or dollar figure, is the concrete evidence TVS has shared publicly so far.

Beyond raw speed, Skema's output connects directly back into TVS's existing Revit-based workflow: a conceptual model can be skinned and enveloped quickly, then moved into Revit for further development, rather than requiring designers to rebuild work across disconnected tools. TVS signed on as one of Skema's pioneer partners, sharing prior Revit project data to help build out the platform's design catalogs.

For newer designers specifically, Karissa Beveridge, a TVS Design Professional, described the impact less in hours saved and more in what that time is redirected toward: "Using Skema will give me a greater design agility, reduce repetitive tasks, and allow me to more quickly make a meaningful difference in the design of large-scale healthcare spaces." At the time of publication, two TVS studios were evaluating expanding Skema into active project workflows; no quantified results from that expansion have been published.

As we journey further into this exciting era of AI and automation in design,

we’ll keep you in the loop. There’s a wealth of content in the pipeline, chronicling our adventures with the next generation of design tools. Not to mention, we’ll soon be sharing the results of our recent Skema design charette at the new TVS Atlanta office. The event was an eye opening exercise for the team that participated, and even managed to catch the attention of a handful of designers that stopped by to check out what was going on.