Bluepencil Calculators
These six dynamic calculators are designed to save you time. Created from accurate data set out in The Bluepencil Density Manual, you can test the area and density of different land uses and housing mixes, in real time, enabling you to refine and optimise your design parameters at the very earliest stage in the development process.
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Quick Links to Calculators
Land Use Allocation
An essential tool for policy makers and masterplanners
This calculator allows you to input the area required for different land uses. The land remaining is calculated as residential. This field can not be altered by the user. You can input into all other land use fields either in hectares or as a percentage of the gross site area. This is a handy tool for policy makers to ensure that a well balanced distribution of land use is achievable on mixed use developments when local plans and site allocations are prepared.
Housing Mix, Area + Density
An essential tool for house builders, land buyers planners and local authorities
This calculator works out how many units you can fit on your net site area for any given mix. You can input either numbers of units or percentages of your target number. The calculator works out how much area is required (including gardens, parking spaces, footpaths and secondary roads). You can adjust the inputs in real time to see the impact of different unit mixes on your site.
Simple Housing Mix
A time-saving tool for tool for architects, planners and local authorities
This calculator converts unit numbers to percentages of the total number of units and vice versa. This tool helps users to see the relationship between unit numbers and percentages of any given mix. If your inputs exceed the total number (or 100%) a warning will appear
Commercial Mix and Area
An essential tool for policy makers and masterplanners
This calculator enables you to work out how much area you need for different types of commercial building. The results are calculated to include the associate parking requirement for each use class.
Parking Requirement
A useful tool for layout designers
This calculator works out how many parking spaces are required based on your unit mix as well as the total number of visitor spaces. The number of spaces for each unit is already filled in with default values, however these can be changed by the user. Simply input the number of each unit and the calculator will do the rest.
Area Conversion
An essential tool for all involved in development
Enter the area in any field and the other fields will automatically adjust so that you can easily convert areas from acres to hectares, square feet to square metres and vice versa.