For your client and designer
Plans and elevations (PDF)
Floor plan, four elevations with finishes, and the window and door schedules.
Insulated Concrete Forms · Design intelligence
Know the build before you build.
The block count, wall elevations, steel cut list and order form for each ICF job, from one live model of the building. Bring your own engineer: enter their design and the app draws it and checks it fits the blocks.
Or try the block height guide, free for your email
One complete building design at no charge. No credit card.
Engineering design checks and pricing are New Zealand only today. Outside New Zealand you enter your engineer's design and your own rates; quantities, wall elevations and cut lists work the same.
Flagship model ≈ NZ$162/year heating vs typical NZ code-built home ≈ NZ$2,039/year
The look · rendered from the project model
One live model
The picture and the numbers stay connected as the design changes.
ICF WALL AREA316.6 m² · 3,408 ft²
·
FLOOR AREA161 m² · 1,729 ft²
·
CUTS REUSED49
·
WASTE0.3%
·
CONCRETE40.34 m³
·
ICF SHELL ESTIMATENZ$96,509
·
HEATING COST EST.≈ NZ$162/yr heating
The ICF shell estimate covers the ICF walls only: blocks and accessories, concrete and pumping, wall steel, installation labour and bracing. It is not the cost of the whole house. The look, the take-off and both estimates come from the model behind this view.
Built by New Zealand's Nudura distributor
15 years with Nudura
250+ ICF projects
2022 International ICF Award
Open the pack you're paying for
See what you take from the model and give to your team.
Real pages from the demonstration house, exported by the app. Click one to read it full size.
For your Nudura supplier and builder
ICF quantities (PDF)
Blocks, corners, concrete, opening timber, fixings, steel and bracing for the whole building.
For your steel supplier, after your engineer
Reinforcing steel cutting list (PDF)
The wall bars with their lengths and weights, wall by wall. Marked for engineer review before you order.
For your engineer (New Zealand)
Lintel calculation package (PDF)
The design basis, loads and lintel checks with their clauses, for peer review. Not a PS1 until an engineer adopts it.
For your designer and engineer
3D model and IFC file
The whole building with every bar, to look round in the browser or open in your own BIM software.
Open the 3D model in the demo →FreeDesign one complete building and see every result in the app, including these.
Single Project, US$89 (US dollars)Export these files for one building, with a year's access.
In New ZealandSponsored, exports included, for a real site address with the quantities shared with PHD Building.
Will it work where I build?
What you get depends on where the building is.
In New Zealand
- Offer
- Nudura projects with a real site address are sponsored, exports included.
- Prices
- New Zealand rates are held, and each budget line shows where its rate comes from. You can change any of them.
- Engineering
- Design Assist works to NZS 3101 and NZS 1170 for walls, footings, lintels and ring beams, with the working shown, for your engineer to review. Or enter your engineer's design.
- Units
- Metric or imperial.
You appear to be here
Everywhere else
- Offer
- One complete building design at no charge. Exports with a Single Project, US$89 (US dollars).
- Prices
- No local rates are held yet. Enter your own supplier rates and the budget uses them.
- Engineering
- Enter your engineer's design: the app draws it, checks it fits the blocks and prices it. Its own checks are to New Zealand standards and say so; choosing your country does not change the design rules.
- Units
- Metric or imperial.
The same everywhere: the block layout, quantities, wall elevations, steel cutting list, 3D model and IFC come from your building, not your postcode.
Show me where this number came from
Every budget line starts from something you can check.
One line from the demonstration house's ICF shell, followed back to where it comes from.
Reinforcing steel — wallsNZ$10,022.65
2,784.4 kg at NZ$3.60 per kg
- The quantityMeasured bar by bar from the wall steel design: outside, inside and foundation walls, and the lintels and beams. See the wall steel →
- The rateThe budget's note on this rate: “Reinforcing steel, cut and bent, all bars.” See the line in the budget →
- The scheduleThe same bars, listed with their lengths and weights in the steel cutting list and the ICF quantities. See the quantities →
Where the app cannot design a lintel because a load is not known, it withholds the design and the budget line says so. It counts minimum steel only, not a guessed design.
Free, just your email
Which wall heights can you build with Nudura blocks, and how?
A block height guide for site: pick a height and see every block in the wall. Not an engineered design.
Open HeightFit
Save it to your phone's home screen. It works offline on site.
Free, just your email
Where do the footings go, and how do they step?
Where to set the top of your footings: give the depth at the deepest spot and see every step. Not an engineered design.
Open FootingFit
Save it to your phone's home screen. It works offline on site.
Free, just your email
Does the wall length fit the module?
Set a wall's length to the module, or keep it and see where the bastard cut goes, with the first course block by block. Not an engineered design.
Open LengthFit
Save it to your phone's home screen. It needs signal to work out an answer.
Free, just your email
Where does each vertical bar go?
Type the wall and your engineer's spacing and get every vertical bar's distance from the corners, with the set-out drawing. Not an engineered design.
Open SteelFit
Save it to your phone's home screen. It needs signal to work out an answer.
Have plans already?
Start with your plans, or ask us to set up the model.
Bring them in yourself
Trace over your PDF plan at true scale, import an IFC model or a DXF, or draw the walls. The app fits them to the block.
Bring in your plansAsk us to set it up
Send us your plans and we will set up the model for you. From NZ$40 to NZ$200 + GST, depending on size and complexity; we confirm the fee before we start.
Send us your plans
Flagship model · whole-building specification
Act IV · Know the running cost
One floor plan. Same weather. The way you build it decides the rest.
We ran the flagship floor plan (161 m² floor, 144 m² heated) as two whole-building specifications: this ICF home (its walls, roof, floor, glazing, airtightness and ventilation) and a typical NZ code-built home. Both sit in Queenstown, New Zealand — 45° south, in the Southern Alps, with 5,976 heating degree days a year and 571 hours below freezing. For heating demand that is Denver, Colorado, within 1%. The floor plan and the Queenstown climate stay the same, so only the specifications differ — the walls are one part of that difference, not all of it. Rotate the model to see how much orientation alone moves the answer.
This ICF home
The flagship design shown on this page
Annual heating demand
12.6
kWh/m² each year
Typical NZ code-built home
Code-minimum insulation and glazing, more air leakage and no heat recovery
Annual heating demand
159.7
kWh/m² each year
Lower numbers mean less energy is needed. In this model, the flagship requires 92% less annual heating energy than the code-built case.
Explore the thermal model, assumptions and evidence →
One complete building design at no charge.
No credit card. When you want the drawings, quantities and reports out, a Single Project is US$89 (US dollars) one-off, for one building.
Start a project
Field-tested
Built from real ICF project experience
PHD Building is New Zealand's Nudura ICF distributor and Australasia's ICF trainer — 250+ projects, including Te Toka, our 2022 International ICF Award winner. Across every one of those projects, the same problems kept appearing before the pour. ICF Designer is the tool we built to fix them, and today it's the same software we use when pricing and planning our own projects.
Jeremy Chisholm
Director, PHD Building · NZ Nudura Distributor · Australasia Trainer
15 years supplying and training on Nudura ICF across New Zealand and Australasia. I built this tool because I needed it.
Know more before the first block is placed.
Design one complete building free, then export its drawings, quantities and reports when you are ready to use them.
One complete building design at no charge. No credit card.
Exports from US$89 (US dollars) one-off for a single project