This week’s partner: IMSCAD Services
IMSCAD Services have been focused on the deployment of graphical applications running in virtual environments, in this time we have evolved to become NVIDIA specialists focusing on vGPU desktop deployments and Enterprise AI projects.
“We’ve launched a globally available WaaS (workstation as a service) platform powered by Lenovo. This provides clients the opportunity to rent high powered workstations on a per user per month or per user per week basis. This solution can handle the most challenging of graphical applications, HPC workloads and AI Projects.”
We offer full pre-sales consultation and professional services to assist with scoping these solutions.
Hi there,
AI tools can now check a set of drawings against the specification, the schedules and the codes far faster than a person can, and nothing stops a client or a contractor from running those checks on the information you send them. Structured AI already does this, and it will not be the last. That changes the question for practices. It is no longer whether you can justify checking your own work this way, but whether you are comfortable with someone else finding the problems first.
The catch is that these checks are only as good as the information underneath them. At the Symetri Technology User Day, nearly two thirds of the room named AI as the biggest pressure on their practice, yet only six of the 28 people who answered would describe their own data as good, and AI reads whichever version it finds and answers with complete confidence.
Frank Nagle's piece in Harvard Business Review suggests part of the answer, because compliance is quickly becoming shared ground that practices cannot compete on, so the standards behind it are worth building together rather than alone. Real-time digital twins push the same question further, since a twin is only useful if the information behind it is trusted and kept up to date, and that is what we will be discussing in a live session with Epic Games on Monday 16th November.
Below you will find all three posts, the details of that session and how to register, where to find me at Digital Construction North, five new tools in the ADDD Database, two videos and one role worth noticing.
Let's get into it. 👇
What Sparked the Most Discussion This Week
A room of architects told me AI is the biggest pressure on their practice. Then I asked them to rate their own data, and only 6 out of 28 called it good.
In the Tour de France, rival teams ride together for most of the race. Architects never do.
RELEASE [AEC] is one of the newest and best events of the year to explore new software for architects. I spent the day introducing speakers onto the stage and learning as much as I could about the tools.
Featured Live session
From Data to Decisions: Real-Time Digital Twins in Practice
Wednesday 4 November, 17:45 to 19:00 GMT, online. Register here
Every architect has had a client approve the drawings, then see the finished building and say it isn't what they pictured.
Real-time digital twins are one of the ways the industry is closing that gap. In plain terms, a digital twin is a live 3D version of a building or place, often built from the same Revit or Rhino model you already have, which clients, planners and communities can explore and use to make decisions before anything is fixed.
That idea ran through From Data to Decisions, the white paper I wrote with Epic Games, and on Wednesday 4 November I am taking it further in a live session with people who build these environments for a living. Each speaker will show one project and explain what decision it supported, who made it and what would have happened without it.
Who is speaking
-/ David Munro, Cityscape Digital - whose work includes the interactive planning platform for British Land's Canada Water regeneration.
-/ Dorian Vee, Imerza - who makes the case that a twin should be treated as a living asset that informs investment decisions, rather than a one-off deliverable.
-/ Sarah Causey, Implexus Lab - whose operational twin at Argonne National Laboratory moved engineers from 2D dashboards to live sensor readings in 3D and VR.
What we will get into
After the project snapshots we will move on to the questions that usually decide whether a twin succeeds or quietly stops being used:
-/ Where the data actually lives, and how many platforms it passes through on the way to the twin.
-/ Who keeps the model current after handover, when the design team has moved on.
-/ Who pays for it, and how the value is proven to the people signing off the budget.
The session is built for practice leaders and digital leads who are being asked whether twins are worth the investment and would rather hear the answer from people who have delivered them. If there is a question you would like the speakers to answer, reply to this email and I will take the strongest ones into the session.
News & Events
Digital Construction North, Manchester
I will be at Digital Construction North next month, so if you are going, come and find me. Now in its third year, it brings together people from across architecture, engineering, construction and operations, with more than 75 speakers, around 50 technology providers and four theatres covering BIM, AI, digital twins, robotics, automation and sustainability. The seminar programme is CPD-accredited.
When: Wednesday 18 November 2026, 9:00am - 18:00pm
Where: Manchester Central
New this week: 5 new software added to the ADDD Database
Each week I share new software added to the ADDD Database, plus specific categories, to help you find the right solutions and stay up to date on what's emerging.
Monta AI - turns early designs into editable LOD 300 and 350 Revit models built with your own templates, families and standards, checking decisions against project requirements and building codes as it goes. Its headline claim is detailed Revit models in hours rather than weeks. monta.ai
Syntopy - a platform for understanding space through connections, combining shape, connectivity and graph data so you can see how the spaces in a model relate to each other and link the model to analysis. syntopy.io
ura
SpaceSync - an AI-assisted workspace for the schematic stage, where its assistant drafts a project's programme from a site and a brief and five linked studios keep the design, the numbers and the presentation in step. spacesync.ai
Ondera - design review and collaboration for AEC teams, letting you mark up drawings, PDFs and site photos and turn the comments into punch lists, on the web and on iPad. ondera.co
Narva AI - more than 40 AI tools for architects and interior designers, including sketch-to-render, style transfer, video generation and 3D visualisation. narva.ai
Videos You Need to Watch
One Role Worth Noticing This Week
Visoid, one of the companies on stage at RELEASE [AEC], is building a professional AI visualisation tool for architects and wants an architect inside the product team. In the listing's words: "As our internal architect, you will work as a core part of the Product Team." The role involves testing new AI models and parametric methods against real industry problems, acting as "the internal voice of the industry, helping to translate industry challenges to product designers and engineers", and helping decide which problems the product tackles next. They are looking for someone who has built technical solutions that improve the architectural design process and who knows computational design and AI tools well.
It is a good example of a job that barely existed a few years ago, where an architect's value to a software company is knowing which problems are worth solving.
→ View role: Here
See all roles here: www.aectechjobs.com/search
What this issue means for practice leaders
The subject line of this issue is not a hypothetical. The AI review tools that practices are starting to evaluate are just as available to clients and contractors, and they will find whatever inconsistencies sit in the information you issue. Read together, this week's posts explain why that matters now.
The Symetri survey shows that practices feel the pressure of AI but do not trust the data they would point it at, which is why the room put keeping control of their data first and building their own tools last. Nagle's argument explains part of how the data got into that state, because every practice is building the same foundations on its own and treating them as an advantage, even though no client pays for them. The tools I saw at RELEASE [AEC] are genuinely impressive but nearly all of them assume the clean, consistent information that only six of the 28 people in that room said they had. Digital twins make the point most plainly of all, since a twin is only as useful as the data behind it and the person responsible for keeping it current once the project has been handed over.
The practical step is to check your own information before anyone else does, and it starts with three things from the Symetri post that cost nothing. Count how many places your project data actually lives, follow one piece of information from the server to the client, and pick one measure of data health to track before you decide which tools to buy.
If you want to see where that work leads when it is done well, join the live session on Wednesday 4 November, where three teams who build twins for a living will explain where their data lives, who maintains it and who pays for it.
And if you would like help working out where your own practice stands, that is what the ADDD workshop is for: a half-day session, in person or online, that looks at where technology creates friction across your workflows and ends with a written report on the problems, the priorities and the next steps.
The easiest way to start is a 30-minute call.
That's it for this week.
If something in here landed - or if you disagree - reply and tell me. I read every response.
Thanks for reading!
Allister
Richard is away this week with the in-laws, hopefully he’s behaving.
