This Ethiopian Online Platform Offers Building Designs for Sale

A civil engineer has debuted his second online platform, AddisCAD, which targets bottlenecks in the construction industry, this time tackling design hassles. The platform began offering its services two months back, featuring complete designs and customizable templates for prospective builders.

Founder Mecha Teshome hopes to see the platform grow into a reliable portal where professional engineers and designers can sell their creations.

“Ideas and insights can be generated by interacting with the platform,” Mecha told Shega.

The Bahir Dar University alumnus predicts future evolutions in Ethiopia’s construction industry based on the successful adoption of technology. He expects the availability of design options to relieve prospective builders from the pressure of rushing into a project without having a design that fully meets their goal. The platform features comprehensive building models and interior design options for completed projects.

Mecha is also the one behind the Addis Cost Estimator platform, which provides detailed cost breakdowns for people undertaking a construction project. Despite being trained as an engineer, the ambitious founder began developing platforms after attending courses from ALX Africa.

Research shows that the Ethiopian construction industry is plagued by project delays partly stemming from incomplete planning, lack of capacity, and cost fluctuations. Recent efforts by the Construction Management Institute have included introducing tools like Building Information Modelling (BIM), software that integrates design, construction, budgets, and schedules into one central platform. 

AddisCAD features simple design features as a preview while allowing in-depth inspections of the 3D designs with virtual reality tools once payment is made.

“Designers can upload the images alongside prices,” Lemecha says.

Prices range from around 1500 birr, with payments made to the designers in a few days processed through telebirr and CBE birr. If a client desires customization, contact can be established with architects and designers.

According to the founder, clients who are completely unsatisfied with the details of the design will receive a full refund.

AddisCAD already features over 100 hundred professionals and charges a 10% commission on successful transactions.

Users can register via email and phone number to access the platform. A few lines into the search bar connect users with potential designs matching their queries. The dashboards host the names of the designers and their offerings.

Mecha foresees several junior design professionals learning from the experiences of their established counterparts through the knowledge-sharing capabilities of the platform.

“Design software are constantly evolving; you need to keep up to stay in the professional loop,” he says.