Company Profile
Envelope
Company Overview
Envelope is a software company, spun out of a longtime collaboration between award-winning SHoP Architects, and the Director of MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab. Our 3D urban mapping platform integrates proprietary geospatial datasets, sophisticated algorithms, and iterative scenario analysis. We enable real estate professionals to visualize opportunity and make faster, smarter, and more discreet investment decisions.
We’re building a cutting-edge 3D spatial analysis and visualization platform, and building it well. We care about design -- our roots are in architecture, after all. We care about clean, high-quality code. We’re diligent about documentation. We are dedicated to a rapid build-test-ship-repeat development model. We enjoy spending time with smart people solving tough problems. We don’t mind when our team works remotely as-needed, because we’re self-motivated enough to get the job done wherever we are.
Company History
Zoning laws constrain the shape, size, and location of any new real estate development. In most large cities, zoning is an incredibly complex set of rules that have been layered over and layered over by district with each new mayoral administration. In NYC, the Zoning Resolution is 4000+ pages of legal text.
In order to understand what's possible to build on a given site, a developer will typically hire an architect or zoning consultant to run an analysis on development potential, and model the possibilities in 3D - called "massing". They then go through an iterative process to understand the financial and spatial impact of different development scenarios (i.e. "what if we were to include a floor of retail, 3 floors of office, and leave the rest residential?" "what if we were to change the floor-to-floor height?" "what if we were to take an affordable housing bonus on that site?" "what if we were to add dormers or another permitted obstruction?" "what if we were to buy the lot next door and assemble them together to build a larger building?"). This whole process can take days to weeks, and can cost the developer $2,000-$30,000.
Between 2008-2015, SHoP Architects and Sarah Williams, Director of MIT's Civic Data Design Lab, collaborated on an ambitious project: to build the 4000-page NYC Zoning Resolution into 3D software. Their goal was to prototype software that could help developers, brokers, and other real estate industry professionals run automated massing analysis.
Envelope spun out of that partnership in late-2015, and has since brought on a team of zoning experts and professional engineers to continue the zoning work and rebuild the prototype into commercially-scalable and commercially-available SimCity-like software. We're now layering on new products to help search for opportunity top-down, and visualize the future of development at an urban scale.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
Envelope won the MIPIM Global smart city software competition in 2017.
Benefits
We are lucky to have our offices in the beautiful Woolworth Building near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge with easy access to all public transportation. We go on periodic excursions into the city to see the real-world effects of the zoning code, and get to know each other outside the office. Most importantly we have a good burr grinder and a Chemex and gorgeous views of the city from the 21st floor.
Our small team is passionate about what we do, eager to tackle serious challenges, and growing quickly. We offer fully-paid individual health care, flexible vacation days, quarterly all-team dinners with curated wines from our vintner co-founder, discounts on transit, and a range of additional benefits. Salary and equity (offered to all full-time staff) are commensurate with experience.