Building

Everything stands on floors, and floors stand on the foundation. You build with the tools in the build palette at the bottom of the screen. Construction is paid at once from your cash.

Floors

Pick Floor (F) and drag across the columns where you want a floor plate.

Your first floors go on the foundation: the street level (G) and the basements the foundation has been dug for.
Every upper floor must rest on the floor below it and may not stick out beyond it.
A slab costs $1,800 per metre, a basement slab $3,200.
In the standard game the building's class limits the height: floor 12 at Class C, 25 at Class B, 45 at Class A and no limit at Prime (see Standing). The sandbox has no limit.

Floors are numbered from the street: G is the ground floor, 1 is the first floor up, and B1, B2 are basements.

Rooms

Every room type has its own button, grouped by category: circulation, offices, homes, plant, amenities. Pick one and drag to set its width; the width snaps to the room's limits. The preview is green with the name, width and price, or red with the reason it cannot go there.

A room needs a floor at its level and may not overlap another room.
Some rooms are only allowed on certain floors: a lobby on G only, a parking level in basements only, a sky bar from floor 15.
Locked rooms have a small padlock. Their tooltip says what unlocks them.

Room	Width	Cost per m	Rent per m	Notes
Lobby	6–32 m	$900	—	Ground floor only; the way in
Sky Lobby	6–32 m	$1,100	—	Class A; a transfer floor high up
Corridor	2–48 m	$300	—	Fills gaps between rooms
Stairwell	4 m	$1,500	—	A shaft, two floors or more
Elevator Shaft	3 m	$4,500	—	A shaft with one car
Express Elevator Shaft	3 m	$7,500	—	Class A; stops at both ends only
Service Elevator	3 m	$3,800	—	Class B; for your staff
Small Office	6–16 m	$1,200	$380	Workers on weekdays
Studio Apartment	6–10 m	$1,400	$210	Residents around the clock
Mechanical Room	3–12 m	$2,000	—	Water and climate
Electrical Room	3–12 m	$5,200	—	Electricity
Telecom Room	3–8 m	$4,800	—	Data
Parking Level	8–32 m	$800	—	Basements only
Fire Control Room	4–6 m	$3,600	—	Sprinklers for 15 floors up and down
Shop	6–16 m	$1,300	$320	An amenity
Restaurant	8–20 m	$1,600	$280	An amenity
Fitness Club	8–16 m	$1,500	$240	Class B amenity
Cinema	10–24 m	$1,700	$200	Class B amenity
Theatre	12–32 m	$1,900	$180	Class A amenity
Sky Bar	8–24 m	$2,100	$360	Class A amenity, floor 15 or higher
Waste Room	2–8 m	$700	—	Collects the building's waste
Staff Room	4–10 m	$1,000	—	Houses janitors and technicians

Costs are for Port Calder; other cities build dearer or cheaper (see Cities and land). Rooms furnish themselves to fit their width.

Shafts

Stairwells and elevators are shafts: drag them upward across the floors they should serve, at least two. Rooms in a shaft's way make room: they are cut narrower or split in two, and the preview tells you how many.

To make a shaft taller or shorter later, pick its tool and drag its top or bottom, or select it and use Extend Up, Shorten Top, Extend Down and Shorten Bottom in the inspector. See Stairs and elevators.

The foundation

Foundation in the palette opens the foundation panel. Each button is one step with its price:

Widen Left / Widen Right: one pile bay (4 m) wider, as far as the plot allows. Foundation costs $6,000 per metre.
Dig a Basement Level: a deeper excavation, $4,000 per metre, up to the plot's limit.
Piles +5 m: longer piles, $150 per metre.

Undo, demolish and refunds

Undo (⌘Z) and Redo (⇧⌘Z) work for every construction step, with the money: undo gives it back, redo charges it again. Buying land and loans cannot be undone.
Demolish (X) removes the room under the cursor, or an empty floor that carries nothing above it. Demolishing refunds 40 % of the cost and ends the lease of a unit.
A flat you have sold belongs to its owner: you cannot demolish or cut it.

Press Esc to put the tool away.