# Button

- **Event:** [Meta Global AI Developer Hackathon](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon)
- **When:** Oct 26, 12:00 PM – Nov 4, 9:00 PM (EST)
- **Where:** Online
- **Team:** [Gardner Bickford](https://cerebralvalley.ai/u/gardner)
- **GitHub:** https://github.com/gardner/button-nz
- **Demo video:** https://youtu.be/6Pwo22Z9u4Y
- **Gallery:** https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery
- **Page:** https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4841

The housing crisis affects us all. Young people are locked out of the market. Artists, musicians, and teachers can't afford to live in their own communities. The quality of life goes down for everyone. Button helps people discover the housing hiding in their backyards.

Anyone can click on a property and see real concepts of what is possible. Search an address or tap a section on the map, describe the small home you want, and explore a concept placed on the actual land in 3D. Ask for changes in plain words, compare real New Zealand prefabs that fit, and see published prices where available.

Today, even finding out what might fit can require specialist knowledge and an upfront investment. Button makes that first exploration accessible. It brings together public property boundaries, aerial photography, and LiDAR measurements so owners can see their land, confirm existing features, and explore a home around the things they want to keep.

Each concept is measured against the granny-flat exemption's checkable conditions, including floor area, height, setbacks, and separation from existing buildings. Owners can see the measurements and unresolved questions alongside the design. These are early concepts: district planning rules, hazards, services, and professional assessment still need attention.

The opportunity extends beyond an individual backyard. Our Reefton, NZ analysis identified 439 properties with existing building outlines and room for a real prefab footprint under the screen's siting assumptions. If a quarter added a home, that would mean 109 additional homes, roughly 18% of the town's 603 private dwellings recorded in the 2023 Census. This is an illustrative scenario, not a forecast or a finding that every site can be developed.

Those homes could help young people live near work, older relatives stay close to family, and essential workers remain in their communities. Button's immediate impact is helping owners move from wondering to exploring. Its longer-term ambition is to turn more of those possibilities into homes.

Button is live at https://button.nz, with open-source code and published experiment reports. Our goal is to give people something concrete to discuss with family and take to a supplier or designer, making the first step toward another home easier to take.

## More from Meta Global AI Developer Hackathon

- [Jehsh Philemon Mulwahali](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4838)
- [OfferLetter](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4839)
- [Pyx](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4840)
- [thermomind](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4842)
- [Auton Team](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4843)
- [Tataloka](https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4844)

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Markdown version of https://cerebralvalley.ai/e/meta-ai-developer-hackathon/hackathon/gallery/4841. Site index for agents: https://cerebralvalley.ai/llms.txt · full text: https://cerebralvalley.ai/llms-full.txt