About us (old)

Vision

Our vision is to empower every house builder in Africa by providing access to the right information and resources to enable him to make good, well informed decisions when constructing his home.

A proper set of construction drawings forms the basis of this vision.

We hope to see communities where every new house meet the requirements of that specific family, where homogeneous houses that does not take the context or individual into account is something of the forgotten past.

We hope to make it standard practice that house plans are sold as off-the-shelf-ready-to-construct documents that simplifies the construction process. We want to make it easier to live in a sensible, beautiful house!

Our Mission

Our country still carries many scars from the past and we want to be part of the solution. We want to make our country a better place. One of the way we identified where we could contribute towards was to provide more people with access to better designed house plans, affordable professional services, and basic guidance on how to build houses.

"A house is more than a structure, it is the heart of families."

We therefore developed an online platform where all architects can upload and sell house plans, making it more affordable and accessible to the general public. Most architects in South Africa have vast collections of well designed houses to which they have the copyright. By providing this platform, we enable architects to make these plans available at affordable rates and contribute solutions to the housing crises in SA.

People are being awarded land and now they can also access well designed plans where they can continue to reap the benefits of energy efficient design for generations to come.

Who are we?

Plans123 was founded by an architect (Anneke) and IT software developer (Corne), a married couple with young children, who live in South Africa - and we love it here! This is us:

We are a small team, situated in Pretoria, South Africa. We take pride in our dedication toward providing a place where architects and prospective house builders can meet .

Who sells on Plans123?

Plans123 is a marketplace for professional architects

Plans123 is a platform where many architects and other professionals in the building industry advertise their products and services.

Notably all house plans have been designed exclusively by SACAP (South African Council for the Architectural Profession) registered professional architects, ensuring that we feature only top quality products.

Any registered professionals in the built environment are welcome to join our community in serving the people of Africa by providing well designed house plans, that comply to the South African National Building Regulations.

What do we sell?

Plans123 sells architecture in bite-size.

In short; we provide full sets of construction drawings. These drawings have the following properties:

1. South African National Building Regulation and SANS 10400 Compliance

2. The drawings can be submitted to the local building authorities for approval.

3. Most of our plans can be bought as digital files, enabling clients to make changes to already well designed buildings, with the help of a local architect.

We are basically selling architecture off-the-shelf.

Alternatively (for the discerning customer!): We showcase top rated professionals who are able to perform fully custom services, should you prefer a tailored solution.

Who are our customers?

Anyone can be our customer - if you plan on constructing a new home. Here are a few typical customers we encounter:

CUSTOMER A: Young working person who stays in Gauteng and buys a house plan for his family in Limpopo. His family will be managing the construction process themselves using the local materials available in their rural area.

CUSTOMER B: A farmer that is constructing new houses for the workers on the farm. He wants to provide sensible new houses that will result in the highest possible quality of life for the occupants. He also buys a different plan for each worker, as per their needs.

CUSTOMER C: A retired man who just bought a empty plot. He plans on making some changes to the design he bought from us, in order to meet the Home Owners' Association's requirements in his estate, so he bought the digital file.

CUSTOMER D: A young family who are moving to SASOL and are building a house with enough room for their expanding family. They bought the hard copies, complete with the SANS 10400 documentation. They will be submitting their plans to the local building authority and appoint a local architect to do regular inspections and sign-off's as they complete their building project.