Dezeen has published its coverage, and film, of The Productive Architect: How AI is Changing Our Approach to Design: the talk it hosted with Trimble SketchUp at the Skybox at DiamondView Tower during the AIA Conference on Architecture and Design 2026 in San Diego. Moderated by Dezeen co-CEO Ben Hobson, the panel brought together Marissa Ritchen, Kestrel's Chief Industry Officer, with Christopher Cronin, senior vice president of architecture and design at SketchUp, and Omar Calderon Santiago, design principal at Perkins Eastman.
The panel's throughline, in Calderon Santiago's words: “fundamentally, architecture is a human endeavour.” As AI becomes embedded in the design process, that makes human judgement, ingenuity, and storytelling more central to the profession, not less.
What should AI actually do in an architecture practice?
Marissa's answer draws a clean line. AI belongs on the repetitive, time-consuming work, and she pointed to Kestrel's code compliance platform as the example: automate the checking so architects spend that time on design. The technology should create more room for storytelling and creative exploration, not replace them.
“I think an architect will always be a storyteller.”
“That idea of lived experience will always inform the architect,” she continued. “You're bringing all of your lived experiences and you are distilling them, and bringing folks in and inviting them into a space that they're collaborating on.” No model generates that. What software can do is clear the repetitive work out of its way.
Why compliance is the work AI should take
Code compliance is some of the most repetitive, highest-stakes work in a project, which makes it exactly the wrong place for human hours and exactly the right place for automation. When the checking runs inside the model, continuously and with citations, the hours it used to consume go back to the part of the job only an architect can do. Marissa goes deeper on that argument in her hour-long Startup Conversations interview with Chaos's CGconnect.
Read the full piece and watch the talk on Dezeen: Architecture fundamentally a human endeavour, says panel at Trimble SketchUp talk in San Diego →
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