Architosh published a feature on Kestrel Labs' launch at the AIA Conference on Architecture and Design 2026, written by founder and editor-in-chief Anthony Frausto-Robledo, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, himself a licensed architect. It walks through the product, but the reason to read it is the closing argument.
Where does code expertise go when a generation retires?
In most firms, the deepest code compliance knowledge is not in a database. It is in the heads of the most senior people: which requirements bite on which building types, how a jurisdiction actually reads a section, what a reviewer will flag. Frausto-Robledo's point is that the profession is about to lose an enormous amount of that knowledge at once:
“What Kestrel is doing is democratizing code compliance knowledge, which is especially meaningful as we enter the crest of the Baby Boomers wave as they retire over the next decade. When they leave, so does decades of hard-earned tacit knowledge about how code compliance works in architecture. Kestrel Labs has arrived just in time for the world of architecture.”
That knowledge cliff is exactly the problem Kestrel was built to meet. When compliance checking runs inside the model and every finding is tied to a model element and cited to the exact code section, code expertise stops living only in senior architects' heads. It becomes visible to the whole team, at every phase, on every project, and younger staff learn the code as they design instead of absorbing it over decades of redlines.
What Architosh saw at the launch
The feature walks through what we built: a compliance platform that runs natively inside BIM, starting in Autodesk Revit, with Trimble Connect live and SketchUp on the way. One click runs a full compliance check in about 30 seconds, every result tied to a model element and cited to the exact code section, alongside Kestrel Compliance Chat and the Kestrel Portal.
Eleven days later, Architosh followed up by naming Kestrel Best of Show for Innovation at AIA26.
Read the full feature on Architosh: AIA26: Kestrel Labs, Native BIM Compliance Platform →
Want to see it for yourself? Schedule a demo →