Span is an AI-assisted CAD tool designed for civil engineers working on infrastructure, site planning, and large-scale coordination. This project is part of a series of speculative engineering tools designed with a unified brand system.

While most CAD tools treat civil work as drafting, Span is built around engineering intent: constraints, grades, alignments, clearances, and relationships that must remain valid as projects evolve.

This project explores how a civil-focused CAD product could feel visually, technically, and conceptually if it were designed from first principles

Civil engineering workflows are uniquely fragile.

Small changes, a grade adjustment, a setback revision, a drainage constraint often ripple through an entire model, forcing engineers to manually rebuild or re-validate large portions of their work.

Current tools:

Optimize for geometry, not intent

Break relationships during iteration

Increase cognitive load as project scope grows

Treat revision as rework instead of evolution

The result is slower iteration, brittle models, and unnecessary risk late in the design process.

Span imagines a CAD system that:

Understands infrastructure logic, not just drawings

Preserves intent across revisions

Makes iteration safer instead of riskier

Scales from early feasibility to detailed planning

Rather than replacing traditional CAD outputs, Span focuses on how those outputs are generated and maintained.

Civil engineering is about permanence, load, and material reality. The visual system needed to feel grounded, durable, and physical.

This is software meant for projects that affect real environments. The design avoids gloss or futurism in favor of confidence and restraint.

Concrete and washed paper textures dominate the layout, acting as:

Visual metaphors for infrastructure

Functional backgrounds for dense technical content

Textures are scaled large and irregular to feel structural, not decorative.

Dark, concrete-heavy sections ground technical explanations, while lighter “washed” sections echo:

Archival drawings

Planning documents

Early-stage site studies

This contrast mirrors the civil workflow: from abstract planning to grounded execution.

Primary accent: Saturated orange for calls-to-action and emphasis

Neutrals: Cream and charcoal to balance intensity and maintain readability

The accent color is allowed to dominate entire sections, reinforcing decisiveness, while neutrals carry long-form content.

The result is a cohesive visual and conceptual direction for a civil-focused CAD product that:

Feels grounded and credible

Reflects the realities of infrastructure work

Prioritizes intent, stability, and scale