Hi there,

Three things drove conversation this week.

First: AIA 2026 wrapped in San Diego. 5,000 architects. 350 sessions. A full exhibitor floor spanning AI, materials, and practice management. The contrast with the UK's professional body offering is stark - and the reasons for it point at something bigger than conference budgets.

Second: I ran an experiment at home. Building a golf simulator room for my son, I deliberately avoided the default tools. Rayon for 2D layout. Qonic for 3D. Gendo for visuals. Claude for material quantities. None of it required a training course. None of it cost four figures a year. And it worked. The question that raises for practice software stacks is worth sitting with.

Third: five ConTech companies raised over $55m last week. That capital goes on people. And the people it's looking for have domain knowledge - which means AEC professionals are in a better position than they might think.

Let's get into it. 👇

A thread runs through everything this week: the gap between what UK architecture practices could engage with, and what they actually do.

At AIA 2026, architects showed up as decision-makers. They evaluated tools. They met vendors. They participated in the business of practice alongside the craft of it. The RIBA's 2026 programme - 27 pages of regional talks and branch socials - asks something different of its members. Smaller. More internal. Less connected to the commercial reality of running a practice.

That's not a criticism of any individual event. It's a structural observation about professional self-image. When a body builds an expo at this scale, it signals to its members that their role extends beyond delivering buildings - to understanding, evaluating, and adopting the tools that make practice viable. UK architects, broadly, have not been given that signal.

The lighter tool stack experiment this week is the same pattern at the individual level. Revit and SketchUp dominate by default - not because they're always the right answer, but because nobody has questioned the assumption. The experiment showed that a ramp now exists where a cliff used to be. Browser-first, sensibly priced tools can handle feasibility, early design, and small projects without the overhead of a full production environment.

The funding news closes the loop. ConTech companies raised $55m last week and are actively looking for people with domain knowledge. AEC professionals are a hiring priority. But you have to be in the room - or at least aware the room exists - to benefit from that.

The cost of opting out isn't prestige. It's knowledge, leverage, and the gap between what technology could do for your practice and what it's actually doing.

1. Your software stack is probably carrying dead weight. The lighter tool experiment isn't an argument for ripping out your production environment. It's an argument for pressure-testing every licence. If a browser-based tool with no training curve can handle feasibility and early design work, what is the full-licence equivalent doing that justifies its cost at every tier of your team?

2. The vendor ecosystem is growing fast - and UK practices aren't engaging with it. Five companies raised meaningful capital last week. Those companies are building tools aimed at construction, architecture, and project delivery. The AIA conference model puts architects in the room with vendors at scale. Without an equivalent in the UK, practices are navigating buying decisions without the market intelligence that comes from that kind of structured exposure. That's a real disadvantage.

3. Domain knowledge is a hiring advantage in ConTech right now. If you have team members who've considered moving into the technology side of the industry, the window is good. Companies are raising capital specifically to hire people who understand how projects work - not just how software works. AEC experience paired with technical curiosity is a combination that's genuinely hard to find.

4. The Technology Blueprint is worth downloading if you haven't. Free, no form, covers software, hardware, AI strategy, and people in a single framework. A useful reference if you're starting to think more systematically about technology in your practice. techblueprint.carrd.co

Get in touch: reply to this email or book a call. 30 min with Allister Lewis