Architects
AI for architects and designers
and the gap between drawing and site
A design practice loses most of its time to admin nobody trained for. These are the systems an architecture or interior practice needs.
Design practices do not lose money on design. They lose it on the admin around it. The revision somebody built from, the selection the client never signed, the site report written at night, the drawing that exists in four versions in three places.
I build the record keeping around a project so the practice is not holding it in people's heads. Site visit reports from a voice note, one place where selections and approvals live, a file structure that survives a revision, and a way to show a client the space before it is built. The drawings stay on your own machine.
The site report from a voice note
The architect walks the site, talks for a minute, and the report comes out written, dated, attached to the project and filed with the photographs from the same visit.
Selections and approvals in one place
Tile, laminate, hardware, fabric and fixture choices, with the date each was approved and by whom. That record ends most of the arguments at handover.
Revisions nobody has to hunt for
One naming system, one current set, and an Agent that can tell the contractor which revision is live and what changed in it.
Approvals and submissions tracked
What has been submitted, what is pending with which authority, and what a consultant is still owed. Visible without asking the project architect.
Show the space before it exists
A clickable 360 walkthrough, or a plan a client can move through, so a change is argued about on a screen while it is still cheap to make.
Your drawings stay your drawings
Plans, costings, client contacts and consultant fees sit on a machine in the studio. No outside AI service receives a copy of any of them.
The wall built to a superseded drawing
The drawing is rarely the problem. The problem is that the site is being built from a print somebody carried there, the contractor has a WhatsApp group with eleven people in it, and the junior who sent the last revision named the file after himself. A practice of any size can tell you about a wall built to a superseded drawing.
The other half is the writing. A site visit produces decisions, photographs, measurements and instructions, all of which have to become a report that goes to the client and the contractor. The architect who took the visit writes it, usually that night, usually last on a list of things she wanted to do. Reports get late, then thin, then stop.
Selections, approvals and the file nobody can find
An interior project is a long sequence of small client decisions. The tile, the laminate, the handle, the tap, the fabric, the light. Each one is shown, discussed, changed and eventually approved, often by message, often by a client who then forgets. When the material arrives and somebody says this is not what we chose, the practice needs the date and the approval, and a memory will not do.
The same applies to statutory work. Submissions, queries, consultant drawings and the clearance that has been pending with an authority for longer than anyone admits. None of it is complicated to track. It is simply nobody's job, so it gets tracked by whoever is most anxious about it.
So the first build in a design office is usually dull: one record per project holding selections with dates, approvals with names, submissions with their status, and the current revision of each drawing. An Agent keeps it up to date from the messages and files that already exist, and answers questions from it.
Showing a client the space before it is built
This part of my work comes from the studio side. A clickable 360 walkthrough lets a client stand in a room that does not exist yet and object to the ceiling before it is poured. A web AR catalogue places a piece of furniture in their own room from a phone, with no app to install.
There is also an attention-flow engine I built for an architecture practice. It walks a plan and shows where a person's attention is likely to go as they move through it. You can try it on the projects page. It was built to answer the question architects are asked constantly and cannot easily prove, which is how a space will feel to walk through.
Start with the site report
The site report comes first. Your architects are writing it after hours and your clients judge the practice on it. The selections and approvals record is next, because that is what protects you when a material is questioned. File naming and revision discipline are third, and they are a habit as much as a system.
- Site visit reports from a voice note, filed with the photographs
- One project record for selections, approvals and submissions
- A naming system and one current drawing set
- An Agent the contractor can ask which revision is live
- A 360 walkthrough for client approval before work starts
- Timesheets and stage billing that nobody has to chase
Why a rendering studio's systems fit a design practice
The reports are reports from a voice note. The project record and the contractor's questions are a WhatsApp Agent sitting over your own files and drawings. Where a practice does not want its drawings leaving the studio, the whole thing runs on a private AI server in the office.
My own studio runs its project tracking, timesheets and file portals on systems I built, which is where most of this comes from. Eighteen people use them daily. A design practice has the same shape as a rendering studio: project-based work, a lot of files, revisions, and a client who changes their mind at the point where it costs the most.
Built, not described
Questions people ask
What can AI actually do for an architecture practice?
The admin around the drawings. Site reports written from a voice note, selections and approvals recorded with dates, submissions tracked, and the current revision answerable without asking a person. It does not design, and I would not sell you a system that claimed to.
Does it draw or generate design options?
No. I build the record keeping, the reporting and the client-facing visuals. Image generators and design plugins are a separate question, and your own architects are better placed to judge those than I am.
Can it tell the contractor which revision is current?
Yes, if your drawings sit somewhere the Agent can read. The contractor asks in the chat he already uses and gets the current revision, the date and what changed. It does not delete or overwrite anything in your drawing folders.
Will our drawings be uploaded to an AI company?
Not if the system runs in your studio. On a private AI server the drawings, costings and client details stay on your own machine, and I document exactly which folders the system is allowed to read.
Can clients see the space before we build it?
Yes. A clickable 360 walkthrough opens on a phone and lets a client walk the rooms. A web AR catalogue places furniture in their own room. Both come from my studio side, and both are on the projects page to try.
How is this priced for a small practice?
A quote follows the audit. What moves it is the number of live projects, where your drawings and files sit today, and whether the studio wants its own machine. The build is paid for once, with no monthly licence and no charge per architect.
We are five people. Is this too small?
No. A small practice feels the admin more, because the principal is writing the site reports herself. The smallest useful build is the report and one project record, and it can be done without changing how anybody draws.
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