Design offices
In a design office, AI can speed up documentation, but it will not take over responsibility for the design
The AI Business Center Foundation (AIBC) is a think tank and advisory partner that helps the boards of construction, industrial and technical-services companies adopt artificial intelligence so that it delivers measurable results and builds competitive advantage. The design offices area is led by an architect licensed to design without restriction.
A drawing generated faster is no longer the advantage. The practice’s organised knowledge has become the advantage
Generative tools for visualisation and text are available to every office. Access to them alone no longer sets a practice apart. What matters is whether the practice has described its own processes, standards and knowledge from previous projects in a way that a new employee and a language model can both use.
How cost arises
In a design office, most of the time goes not on drawing but on the work around the design: technical descriptions, answers to questions from the investor and the contractor, coordination between disciplines, the flow of changes, schedules and specifications. Knowledge of how the practice does this well often sits in the heads of the lead designer and two or three experienced people. When they are busy, the project waits.
AI can shorten this work only when the practice’s standards are described and every result has a person who verifies it. Responsibility for the design lies with the licensed designer, whatever the tool.
Where we look for value
- Descriptions and specifications: templates for technical descriptions based on the practice’s standards, verified by the designer.
- Questions and answers in the investment process: order in the flow of questions from the investor, the contractor and the authorities, together with the history of decisions.
- Flow of changes: a single source of information about a change and its consequences for each discipline.
- Knowledge from previous projects: solutions, details and decisions available to the team, not only to the people who remember them.
- Communication with the client: consistent language across the proposal, the contract and the project presentation.
What the Foundation does for design offices
- 30-day readiness assessment: which of the practice’s processes are worth organising first.
- Semantic transformation, that is, organising a company’s names, processes and data so that people, language models and board reports understand them the same way: a description of the practice’s standards, a process translator in the team, a shared vocabulary across disciplines.
- GenAI competence: programmes for designers and assistants, built on the practice’s own tasks.
- Compliance and ESG: rules for working with clients’ data and the regulations that apply to AI uses.
- Grants and funding: funding for digitalisation and for developing the team’s competence.
The area is led by Joanna Balasińska, an architect licensed to design without restriction and President of the Management Board of the AGP1 design practice.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI prepare part of the design documentation?
It can help prepare texts, schedules and draft letters, compare versions and search documents. Responsibility for the content of the design lies with the licensed designer, whatever tool they used. That is why we begin every use case by establishing who verifies the result and how.
Where should a design office start?
With the processes that recur in every project and place the heaviest load on the team: technical descriptions, answers to questions from the investor and the contractor, the flow of changes, schedules and specifications. That is where the time before and after is easiest to measure.
What about the confidentiality of clients' documentation?
It is the first question we ask. The office's standard for working with GenAI sets out which data may not be processed outside an approved environment, and the choice of tool depends on where the data is processed.
Let’s start with a conversation
Let us choose the one process that takes up most of the practice’s time outside design work. Arrange a conversation.