01
Cites the paragraph
Every statement links to its source: ADB Vol 1 Table 3.1, BR 2010 reg 7. Para checks each citation against what the AI actually read and removes any it made up, and tells you it did.
England · Approved Documents · BR 2010 · BSA 2022
Building regulations, cited.
Para answers questions about the building regulations from the documents themselves, and links every statement to the paragraph it came from, so you can check it in one click. It's free, open source and runs on your own computer.
Mac (Apple Silicon) and Windows 10/11 · works with Lemonade, Ollama, LM Studio and other engines, or runs its own
02
Private by default
With a local engine, your questions and documents never leave your computer. Para shows whether it's private, and warns you if your engine is somewhere else.
03
Diagrams and tables
About 600 diagrams and tables are shown as images beside their paragraph, and every passage opens the original PDF at its page.
04
Your own documents
Add specifications, fire strategies or building control comments and they're searched with the library. Para asks you to confirm you're allowed to use each one this way first.
How it works
Ask. It looks it up. You check it.
- 01You ask in plain words: “Minimum headroom over a private stair?” Add notes about your project and every answer takes them into account.
- 02The AI searches the library and reads the relevant paragraphs, tables and diagrams. You can open the list of everything it looked up, and its reasoning.
- 03It answers with citations to the paragraphs it read. Click one to open the document at that paragraph, highlighted, with a link to the original.
The library
The documents, not the internet
Approved Documents
A to T and 7, both volumes of B, F, L, M and R, current amendments and corrections, the gov.uk FAQs and the Manual to the Building Regulations.
Legislation
Building Regulations 2010, Building Act 1984, Building Safety Act 2022, the higher-risk building regulations of 2023, the Fire Safety Order 2005 and the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022.
Guidance
Government guidance on higher-risk buildings: the criteria, building control approval, changes, completion, the golden thread and mandatory occurrence reporting.
Rebuilt every week from gov.uk and legislation.gov.uk; the app offers new editions as they're published. England only for now: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are planned. Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
AI engines
Use your engine, or let Para run one
An engine you already run
Lemonade, Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan, vLLM or any other OpenAI-compatible server, on your computer or your office network. Find engines on this computer sets it up for you.
The built-in engine
Para suggests a model that fits your computer's memory, downloads it with llama.cpp, and runs it. Nothing else to install. 16 GB of memory or more recommended.
Download
Free, for Mac and Windows
Looking for the latest release…
Installing, and the first-run warnings
Mac: unzip, move Para to Applications and open it. The first time, macOS says it can't verify the app: open System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.
Windows: right-click the zip, Extract All, then open Para.exe. If SmartScreen appears, click More info, then Run anyway.
The warnings appear because the app isn't signed with a paid certificate. The source is public, and the builds are made by GitHub Actions from it.
Before you rely on it
AI makes mistakes. Para shows its sources so you can check every answer against the documents, but it isn't professional advice and doesn't replace your judgement or building control approval.
Open source
Free to use, share and improve
Para is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 or later. Report a wrong answer or citation, improve how documents are read, or check AI-written descriptions of diagrams: it all helps.