AI in my Architecture Practice - 2025 Update

Over the past few months I've been experimenting with AI and discovered something counter-intuitive: the most impactful AI tools I return to each day aren't design-related at all. It's the ones that eliminate the administrative burden stealing my creative time.

I tracked every hour of my work for a month and the results were sobering:

  • 35% administrative overhead

  • 25% meetings, site visits, coordination

  • 20% client management

  • 20% design and production

That doesn’t match how I see myself—or how most of us do. We imagine we’re in the business of designing. The reality is, we’re in the business of everything else!

While everyone's talking about AI for concept generation, I've found it's far more valuable as an administrative partner to help me reclaim some of that 80% (!!!) of non-design time.

Here are few quick use cases to inspire you:

1. Estimate Taxes + Optimize Paying Them

Tax time is closing in and this quarter, I used Claude 3.5 Sonnet to estimate my quarterly taxes for me, including the QBI deduction (that’s a bummer to calculate accurately, IYKYK!) I fed it my P&L and asked:

“Estimate my quarterly taxes, include QBI deduction, show your math, and document assumptions.”

It gave me a breakdown of AGI, deductions, and payments for Federal and State. Then I asked:

“What’s the best business credit card to use if I want to pay this tax bill and get the highest return, including signup bonuses? Factor in processing fees, annual fees, rewards and bonuses.”

It compared rewards, fees, and point value based on my actual spend. I picked one, applied and when I pay my taxes on April 15th I will have earned at least $1,100 in travel value plus some cash back. Now I have a 'tax project' in ChatGPT I can use moving forward.

BONUS HACK: When your new credit card arrives, don’t toss the Guide to Benefits. It’s a dense, jargon-filled list of every perk the card offers—trip delay insurance, extended warranties, purchase protection, and more. I used to ignore it too. Now, I snap a photo or upload the PDF to a dedicated ChatGPT project (mine’s called Credit Cards). I ask it to extract a summary: annual fees, renewal dates, and key benefits. Then I drop that into a Notion page for quick reference.

Even better, I’ve trained ChatGPT to create context-based reminders. For example, when I’m preparing to book travel, I just prompt:

“Act like my travel concierge. Based on the benefits from my [Card Name] guide, what should I remember to use, activate, or avoid when booking a trip?”

It replies with a checklist—flight protections, unused travel credits, which card to use for coverage, and claim instructions if something goes wrong. It’s actually saved me real money. I once left a new iPad on a plane and got it replaced because ChatGPT reminded me the card I used covered theft and loss.

You can do the same with memberships. AIA, for example, comes with perks that are easy to miss—rental car status, product + insurance discounts, even legal resources. Catalog them once, and your future self will thank you.

Other uses + ideas:

→ A. Forecast project cash flow month-by-month
Feed your live Google Sheet of invoices, payment milestones, and planned expenses into Claude or Gemini and prompt:

“Map expected cash flow by month for the next 6 months. Flag risk periods and suggest payment timing strategies.”
It’ll show you where things might get tight—before it happens.

→ B. Identify underperforming projects
Upload project-level budget actuals and ask:

“Which projects are tracking below projected profitability and why? Sort by fee structure and project type.”
This is insight you can act on—whether to adjust scope, schedule, or staffing.

→ C. Optimize recurring business expenses
Dump your last 6 months of business expenses into Claude and ask:

“Identify subscriptions, tools, or services that I haven’t used in 90+ days. Suggest where I can cut or consolidate.”
This is the digital equivalent of spring cleaning—and it saves real money.

2. Meeting Notes That Write Themselves

Client calls, site visits, coordination meetings—they pile up.

I use Granola.ai (you can also use Whisper transcription) to record all my meetings, then I upload the transcript to GPT-4o and prompt:

“Summarize this by (1) decisions made, (2) action items by stakeholder, and (3) unresolved issues.”

If the result is messy, I iterate:

“Now rewrite this as an email to each stakeholder in the form of a follow-up email—clear, concise, bullet points for each decision.”

The real shift happens when you use these meeting summaries to build a dedicated project in ChatGPT or Notebook LM (powered by Google's Gemini). I've started prompting:

"Compare this meeting's decisions to our last three meetings on this project. Identify any reversals or inconsistencies in client requests."

This catches potential scope creep early and provides documentation when change orders are submitted.

In Granola you can chat with any meeting too. I can't count how many times I've left a meeting only to forget the final decision we agreed upon for a minor project detail just a few hours earlier.

Other uses + ideas:

→ A. Auto-generate discipline-specific punch lists
After a consultant meeting or site visit, upload audio or transcript and prompt:

“Generate three punch lists: one for the GC, one for the electrical engineer, one for my internal team. Include photos if referenced.”
Use tools like SuperWhisper, Granola, or Whisper transcription + ChatGPT to pull this off.

→ B. Track design decision history
Feed in weekly notes and transcripts and ask:

“Track all decisions made about the kitchen design since project start. Include client rationale and status.”
It’s building a searchable memory—one you’ll be grateful for when changes come up.

→ C. Polish Design Narratives for Awards or Clients
LLMs excel at improving clarity and tone over multiple passes. Feed in your initial project description, then iterate:

  • Pass 1: Tighten the language

  • Pass 2: Highlight innovation without jargon

  • Pass 3: Match a specific style guide (e.g., “write this like a Dwell piece”)

The more you guide it, the more precise the result.

→ D. Throw your project meeting notes into Notebook LM
Take your project meeting minutes, site visit notes, and any related PDFs or emails and upload them to Notebook LM. Once the material’s in, prompt:

“Summarize these notes into a 6-minute podcast I can listen to on my way to the site. Prioritize unresolved issues, decisions made, and any changes since the last visit.”

Notebook LM will generate a natural-language conversational summary and you’ve got a quick, customized pre-visit briefing—no more scrambling to remember what happened last time.

3. scaling your expertise

I've started documenting any specialized workflows—the things only I know how to do—to make them transferable. For example, I recorded myself on Loom as I completed a zoning analysis for a new residential project. I took the transcript that it auto-generates and dropped it into Claude and asked:

"Transform this into a detailed SOP that a junior designer could follow. Identify steps where additional context is needed. Flag opportunities for automation and suggest ways to simplify or speed it up."

Once I had that draft, I asked GPT-4o to review it:

“Improve clarity, remove redundancies, and make sure a junior staff member could follow this without needing context.”

Now I have a reusable, self-contained + more efficient process I can easily share with a remote team member.Other uses + ideas:

→ A. Document your social media workflow
Record yourself outlining how you take a finished video or project photo and schedule it for Instagram or YouTube. Then ask:

“Turn this into a repeatable checklist with tool recommendations and time estimates. Make it usable for a VA.”
Now you’re delegating marketing without starting from scratch.

→ B. Formalize your proposal writing approach
Document how you create fee + scoping proposals. Feed into Claude and ask:

“Write an SOP for proposal development that captures performance goals, cost review, and documentation.”
You’ll spot steps that can be templatized or automated.

→ C. Create onboarding for new collaborators
Walk through your project folder structure, naming conventions, and communications process. Then:

“Create a ‘welcome doc’ for new freelancers or consultants that explains how to work with me effectively.”
You only write this once. It pays off every time you onboard someone new.

The most powerful addition I've recently implemented is a weekly "meta-review" where I ask the LLM to analyze its own outputs: "Review all AI-assisted tasks from this week. Identify patterns in what I'm asking for and suggest workflows that would anticipate these needs." This recursive learning loop has identified several repetitive tasks I wasn't even aware I was doing regularly.

Start small this week: pick the administrative task you find most draining and apply one of these approaches and experiment from there.

None of this is theoretical. These are small, compounding wins. Over time, they’re forming the backbone of something bigger—until I can think of a better name, I’ve been calling it, Project Intelligence. It’s a system that evolves alongside each project, remembers everything, and handles more of the overhead with every iteration. If you’re unfamiliar with the current AI tools, now’s a great time to begin experimenting.

Model Selection MATTERs:

Not all AI models perform the same. Each one has strengths depending on what you're trying to do. Here's how I choose:

GPT-4o (ChatGPT Pro)

  • Best for: General writing, email drafts, meeting summaries, everyday prompts

  • Why: Fast, reliable, well-rounded. Good at tone and formatting.

  • Use when: You want clarity fast, or you’re iterating on written content.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet / Opus (Anthropic)

  • Best for: Complex reasoning, SOPs, long context (e.g. project docs, transcripts)

  • Why: Structured, cautious, and good at step-by-step logic.

  • Use when: You need it to “think” clearly across multiple steps or large chunks of info.

Gemini Advanced (Google)

  • Best for: Financial modeling, spreadsheet logic, parsing PDFs from Drive

  • Why: Great with structured data and math-heavy prompts.

  • Use when: You’re projecting cash flow, comparing options, or dealing with numbers.

Perplexity Pro

  • Best for: Research, source-backed summaries, trend scans

  • Why: Cites everything. Good for learning something fast.

  • Use when: You’re researching materials, methods, or unfamiliar territory.

Grok (xAI / Twitter)

  • Best for: Real-time sentiment, trends, social-adjacent ideas

  • Why: Built on social data. Can be surprisingly creative.

  • Use when: You want to know what people are saying right now—or just explore ideas.

Bottom Line:

  • Use Claude for structure + logic

  • Use GPT-4o for clarity + versatility

  • Use Gemini for numbers + documents

  • Use Perplexity for citations + research

  • Ignore Grok unless you're very online

Architecture School in a Box

Before I enrolled in architecture school in the late summer of 1991 (has it been 32 years?), I received a long list of “required tools + supplies” from my university. As it turns out, I spent a lot of money on things I never used. As architecture schools greet new students this fall, I thought it would be fun to revisit that list of “must-haves” after having practiced architecture for 30 years. What’s stood the test of time in my practice? If I had go to architecture school again, this is what I’d bring.

Storage

I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for everything Yeti makes and their GoBox 30 is no exception. It’s just about perfect for studio storage with an included removable tray and a center divider to subdivide the 11”W x 18”L x 9” interior. Left undivided it can handle all the irregularly shaped tools and supplies we’re about to fill it with. It’s large enough to hold all your supplies, but it’s small enough that it’s still portable. Just under the lid there are three mesh pouches, Yeti calls this the ‘pack attic’ which adds another layer of organization to the box for storing a tablet, a laptop and sketching tools. The lid has eyelets so you can lock it to your studio desk.

I know this will last a lifetime, but there are certainly cheaper options and you might opt for a tool chest or tackle box as a lower cost alternative; they just won’t hold quite as much stuff.

(pre)Design

Before we can begin design we start with a period called predesign where we understand the design problem and conduct research. So, first on my list is a camera to document existing site conditions, for precedent studies, travelogues, and later for documenting construction progress. A wide angle zoom lens is versatile enough to capture both exterior and interior spaces as well as details. I find using a camera improves my visual acuity, it sees things in a way I’m not able.

Next, a 25’ tape measure is a tool I use in practice every day. As I’m drawing I use it to gauge how tall or wide an element should be, to measure existing spaces and structures, I use it in client meetings to show mounting heights, and on-site to verify dimensions. Understanding scale and proportion are key skills we rely on in this profession, a tape will help you learn to become spatially and dimensionally aware.

The essential reading and research in architecture school these days is all done digitally. But as you progress, you'll want to build a reference and an inspiration library. And I just like having physical books nearby as I'm designing, and I use them to reference details and standards during the design process.

Design

“Sketching is thinking,” as they say and initial concept development (for me) always happens in my sketchbook. You want a sketchbook that fits easily in your hands, something that's portable so you’ll always have it with you. I like a wire-bound one because it lays flat on the desk and choosing one with a grid allows you to sketch to scale by assigning each grid a unit of measurement.

Your sketchbook is where you document all of your ideas and of course, you'll need pens and pencils to do that. For ink, I use three pens: for thick lines I like the Pentel Sign Pen, for medium lines it’s a Sharpie Ultra Fine, and for thin lines, I like the Pilot Precise V7 and V5.

I prefer to sketch in graphite, the Kuru Toga remains my all-time favorite. It has a geared mechanism at the tip that twists the lead as you write so you always have a sharp point. Don’t forget to throw in some extra leads and some erasers. A small click eraser is great for precisely erasing things on the page.

If you want to add a splash of color to your drawings, it's nice having some colored pencils (I like Derwents) and markers for shading and shadow. Copic markers are the premium choice because they’re alcohol-based they allow you to blend on page. When you're choosing colors for all of these, choose things that match with architectural materials (wood, metal, glass, stone) or site colors (vegetation, etc.) - browns, greens, yellows, and blues.

I keep everything orgranized in a pencil case, my current favorite is made by Bellroy. The seaming allows it to lay flat and propped open on your desk, and the loop allows you to hook it to your backpack easily, grab and go.

You also want to pick up a few rolls of tracing paper. This is just an inexpensive translucent paper we use to lay over an existing drawing and iterate and refine our designs. You'll use a lot of this in architecture school. I like the 12”x50yd format in white by Bienfang.

presentation + modeling

Manual drafting tools are relics of the past; we don’t use these in practice today as everything is drawn digitally. Your school will dictate the how much hand drafting you'll be doing. So, although I look at my old tools with some fondness, they're nothing that I've used in my 30 years of practice.

You will, however, need an architectural scale: an Imperial and a metric one (location dependent of course). Download the guide for my recommendations.

Physical model building is a part of many design professionals process and it will always have a place in mine. Check out the videos and posts linked below for more information on the model making tools I use in practice.

Digital Tools

I use my iPad every single day. I use it to sketch in Procreate, for client presentations, for accessing drawings and specs on site visits. Learning to incorporate an iPad or a tablet into your workflow is going to be a skill you'll need as you graduate into the profession.

It's not, however, a replacement for a laptop. Because technology is always changing, check my laptop buying guide which I regularly update. Every school is going to have different requirements and they’re informed by the level of task you require (drafting is very different to real-time rendering). It's probably not going to be Mac-based, even though that’s what I use as a sole practitioner. Most of the software that we use as architects run on a PC. Be sure to check with your school.

Links to all the suggested tools, tech and accessories are included in the FREE resource download. Click the button below to download it.



New tools for the Studio (iPad for Architects)

Do you really need an iPad as an architect, an intern or student? See if any of the four uses I came up with resonate with you. Having always sketched on paper or trace with pencil and ink, a tablet never really appealed to me or seemed entirely useful. I wasn’t sure how it would fit into my workflow, but the Apple pencil and Procreate have changed my mind.

Read More