Urban planning happens at multiple scales simultaneously. A floor plan decision affects how a building works. A building decision affects how a parcel reads. A parcel decision affects how a neighbourhood functions. These scales are not independent. They are linked, and a generative tool that ignores the relationships between them produces output that looks reasonable at one scale and fails at another.
Hektar organizes its logic around this layered structure. Each scale has its own typology library, its own constraints, and its own role in the overall generation process. The scales interlock so that decisions made at one level constrain what is possible at the next.
Hektar's terminology spans four primary scales, each with its own purpose and library of typologies:
The smallest scale. A type plan describes a single floor of a building, including unit layouts, circulation, and proportions. Hektar features 15 base type plan typologies covering both regular footprints and corner conditions. Each one complies with size ranges based on Swedish Regulation SS 91 42 21. For full detail, see Type Plan Typologies.
The next scale up. A building typology defines how multiple type plans combine vertically into a complete building. Building typologies carry their own behavioural logic, including circulation core arrangements and structural rules. See Building Typologies for the full library.
The largest scale handled at the building configuration level. Parcel typologies define how buildings are arranged on a parcel, with more than 500 unique base configurations. The arrangement depends on which sides of the parcel face the street and how the parcel relates to its surroundings. See Parcel Typologies for the configuration logic.
The outermost scale. A site contains one or more parcels, the street network, zones, terrain, and the broader context. Site-level decisions about zoning, noise, and solar conditions propagate down to all the scales below.
The scales are not separate libraries that happen to live in the same tool. They are connected, and the connection is what makes generative feasibility coherent.
When the algorithm places buildings on a parcel, it is choosing parcel typologies. Each parcel typology constrains which building typologies are compatible. Each building typology constrains which type plans can be used. The constraint flows downward.
The flow also works upward. The area and unit counts produced at the type plan level aggregate into building totals. Building totals aggregate into parcel statistics. Parcel statistics aggregate into site-level metrics like Floor Area Ratio. The numbers flow upward from the smallest scale to the largest.
Most planning tools work at a single scale. Massing tools work at the building scale. Floor plan tools work at the unit scale. Site planning tools work at the parcel scale. Each tool is good at its own level, but the handoffs between them are where information gets lost.
The layered scale structure in Hektar removes the handoffs. A change at one scale propagates correctly to the others. This is what makes early-stage risk compression possible. The trade-offs between scales become visible in the same model rather than emerging weeks later when a different tool is consulted.
For a deeper visual reference of the typologies at each scale, our downloadable Architectural Scales guide is available as a PDF on the Learning Center.
