San Ramon, CA — Just as "vibe coding" has brought a paradigm shift for software engineers, Illoca believes architecture and engineering are on the verge of a similar transformation. In the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, designers still spend significant time manually building, rebuilding, and coordinating geometry as projects evolve. Plamo brings "vibe modeling" to this workflow, letting designers focus on design intent while agents handle spatial relationships, geometric constraints, and the manual modeling involved in increasingly complex systems.

AI startup Illoca today announced the launch of its second product, Plamo in beta. Plamo is a new agentic 3D modeling workspace that turns sketches, reference images, drawings, and natural language into editable geometry directly in the browser. Previously, Illoca launched Tracing Paper, an AI-assisted workspace for rapid architectural prototyping.

"Vibe coding showed us that the biggest shift isn't just making software development faster," said Chin-Yi Cheng, co-founder and CEO of Illoca. "It changes who can participate in building, how quickly ideas can be tested, and where engineers direct their attention. We believe 3D design is heading in the same direction. Plamo lets designers work at the level of intent while keeping geometry editable and the underlying logic intact, so speed doesn't come at the cost of control."

Plamo is designed around what happens after generation. Rather than producing static meshes or one-off visual outputs, it creates editable BREP geometry backed by parametric logic, enabling designers to continue modifying dimensions, systems, and relationships without rebuilding models from scratch. The resulting models stay "alive" as the design evolves—closer to a continuously evolving design environment than a generative endpoint.

Plamo's agents understand the request before starting to model, handling text, images, diagrams, annotated drawings, or full floor plan sets. It can reconstruct buildings, incorporate reference materials, bring in structural or MEP systems, and reorganize geometry to align with project conventions. When information is missing, it proactively researches; when intent is ambiguous, it asks for clarification rather than silently filling in gaps.

"In practice, the bottleneck is often not a lack of ideas," said Chiaowei Yu, co-founder and COO of Illoca. "It's the manual effort required to translate every change into the model and then coordinate across the project. Plamo keeps designers closer to the decisions that truly matter, while the model keeps up faster."

Plamo is for professionals who ultimately need to turn ideas into usable 3D geometry—from architecture and infrastructure to product and manufactured objects. By reducing the manual work required to create and repeatedly rebuild models, Plamo gives teams a faster way to explore while preserving the editability needed to keep developing the design.

• Architects and design teams:Explore massing, building systems, spatial concepts, and design alternatives earlier, without spending hours manually modeling each iteration.
• Engineers:Build and iterate on technical systems like structure and MEP within a coordinated model, providing a starting point for evaluation and downstream development.
• Developers and design-build teams:Test ideas and project scenarios in 3D early in the process, making it easier to communicate intent and coordinate teams before detailed design begins.
• Product and industrial designers:Move quickly from sketches, references, or requirements into editable parametric models that can continue downstream into CAD and manufacturing workflows.
• Cross-disciplinary teams:Bring design information together in a shared 3D environment where geometry can be refined, communicated, and handed off without starting over when designs change.

With Plamo, Illoca is betting that the next major shift in 3D design won't come from faster commands, but from a new relationship with software—where designers spend less time operating tools and more time directing intent. Plamo puts this into practice through "vibe modeling," turning ideas into a working 3D design environment.

Plamo is now available in beta at illoca.com/plamo .

About Illoca

Illoca builds AI-native design tools that turn ideas into editable designs. Plamo is an agentic 3D workspace for "vibe modeling," transforming sketches, images, drawings, and natural language into editable parametric models. Tracing Paper accelerates architectural prototyping by turning sketches, markups, and prompts into editable floor plans, massing studies, and design documentation.

Illoca was founded in San Ramon, CA by Chin-Yi Cheng (formerly of Google DeepMind and Autodesk AI Lab) and Chiaowei Yu (formerly Tesla BIM Lead). The company has raised $13 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners.