One aspect of professional practice I miss in retirement is the
architect’s obligation to conduct periodic site observations of projects in
construction. Watching a building take shape that I had a hand in designing was
always immensely rewarding. In this post, I'll consider what happens to that
obligation now that AI tools capable of near-continuous site observation exist.
Neither AIA Document A201-2017 nor Oregon Administrative Rule 806-010-0050 says
a word about artificial intelligence, which is understandable; neither document
has been substantially rewritten lately. I suspect the "periodic"
standard was always a practical accommodation to what a human being could
manage, rather than a considered position about what is ideal.
I wrote a piece three years ago about OpenSpace AI, another on the architect’s standard of care, and a third, more speculative post on AI’s broader impact on the profession. I believed OpenSpace is a game-changer because it let me follow a project’s progress from anywhere while virtually touring it as if I were physically present. In today's world, where accountability is paramount, I said that OpenSpace offered a superior solution for documentation of construction progress.
A201-2017 draws a deliberate line between the architect's
responsibility for "periodic" presence on the jobsite and the
"exhaustive or continuous" inspection it explicitly disclaims, and
between "observing" the work and "inspecting" it. Oregon's
rule sets a parallel standard: observation on "a periodic
basis as is necessary," without the same explicit contrast, but pointing
in the same direction.
We tend to talk about “observe versus inspect” as if it were
a principled distinction about the architect's proper role. Design intent
belongs to the architect, while means and methods belong to the contractor, and
so on. This allocation of risk is real and defensible. But underneath all this lies
a basic fact: the standard assumed a person could reasonably meet it by driving
to the site with a notepad and a camera, at intervals consistent with the project’s
scope and complexity. It never claimed to be ideal. It simply reflected what
was possible. What AI is capable of is bringing this into question.
With apps like OpenSpace AI, continuous, computer‑vision‑assisted
site observation has moved from novelty to a maturing product category. Buildots,
a competing example with a growing market share, works much the same way. A
worker walks the site regularly wearing a 360‑degree hard‑hat camera; the app
processes the imagery, matches it to the design team’s BIM model and the
schedule, and generates reports, trade by trade and element by
element, documenting what is built against what was supposed to be. It flags
deviations, forecasts delays, and produces documentation that once required
many hours of a superintendent’s time. Several large and sophisticated
builders, such as Fortis Construction (OpenSpace AI), and Turner
Construction and JE Dunn (Buildots), already deploy these tools. These
contractors have normalized continuous observation for their own risk posture.
In one of its case studies, Buildots reports helping a Danish contractor avoid a potential six-week delay and daily fines of 0.1% of contract value on an 86,000 SF office building project. The company quotes the project's director on the part that matters here: claims are usually a mess of poor documentation, but with continuous data in hand, "we have real numbers and historical data to oppose or validate those claims.”
I cite this case study because it shows what problems this
technology was built to solve, and for whom. It wasn’t built for design
intent, and not for the architect’s interpretive judgment, but to help address
disputes, delay, and claims exposure for the parties who bear that exposure
most directly. The physical limitation that once calibrated the “periodic, not
continuous” standard no longer constrains anyone. Instead, the issue has become
one of cost and adoption, which raises a different kind of question, one the
legal system has dealt with before.
In a 1932 ruling, Judge Learned Hand decided a case every first‑year law
student becomes familiar with. It involved two tugboats, a storm, and the loss of coal
barges. The tugboat owner hadn’t equipped his boats with radio receivers, which
by then were cheap, dependable, and reasonably common, though not yet
universal, and so missed a storm warning that would have compelled him to seek shelter.
He argued that since most tugboats in the area didn’t carry radios either, he’d
met the industry standard. Judge Hand disagreed, in language pertinent to this blog post: “A whole calling may have unduly lagged in the adoption of new and
available devices . . . Courts must in the end say what is required.” Industry
custom, in other words, offers evidence of due care. It does not define it. A
whole profession can fall behind, and a court can say so.
I raise this legal precedent not because I think a court is
about to hold that architects must deploy or rely on OpenSpace AI, Buildots,
or their technological cousins. I raise it because the logic transfers
uncomfortably well. If continuous, affordable observation exists, and the
contractor down the hall already runs it for their own reasons, “I visited
during framing, per my professional judgment” will sound less convincing in a
deposition five years from now than it does today. The baseline everyone is
measured against is shifting in ways architects do not control.
The architectural profession's response to this shouldn’t be dread. The
architect’s standard of care and contractual language deliberately allocate
risk. The contractor controls means and methods because the contractor builds
the project; as the architect, I controlled design intent because that’s the
professional judgment I was licensed to exercise. Having a capability doesn't
create an obligation to use it in some new, more exposed way. A full-time
project representative doesn't change that either. More eyes on the job would
not have relieved me of exercising, and standing behind, my professional
judgment.
The American Institute of Architects released a Position Statement on Artificial Intelligence this past January, and a more
substantive nine‑point Guidance for the Responsible Use of AI by Architecture and Design Firms last
October. Both documents are genuinely current and thoughtful. They affirm that
professional judgment is non‑negotiable. But professional judgment is not the
same as professional procedure, and this is where a gap now grows. For
you architects out there, I recommend reading both the position statement and
the guidance document.
What the AIA hasn’t done yet is address the architect’s site
visitation obligations in light of rapidly advancing AI technology. Their table
of “emerging AI use opportunities” covers design, visualization, business
operations, and research. Under project delivery, they offer nothing more
specific than “task automation” and “documentation.” They offer even less
regarding construction contract administration, observation duty, and the
architect’s standard of care in the field.
Notably, when I looked at how platforms like OpenSpace AI
and Buildots organize themselves, their websites sort their audience by
role into project teams, executives, owners, and construction managers. The
architect doesn’t appear in their taxonomy at all. They built their tools to
solve the contractor’s and owner’s problems, not the architect’s. Consequently,
these rapidly evolving tools do not address the architect’s statutory duty to
observe the work in progress. When the architect is absent from the tools’
mental models, others risk defining the architect’s obligations.
There is an actual opportunity here. It isn't that AI will
make architects better observers, though it might, but that the rule governing
how this technology intersects with our legal obligations is still being
written, largely by people who aren’t architects, for purposes that fall outside the profession's domain. AIA has made a real start, but it hasn’t finished. The gap between the
studio and the jobsite, in the guidance as it stands, is precisely the gap
architects would be wise to fill for themselves before an insurer’s
underwriting requirement or a plaintiff’s expert witness fills it for them. The
moment for architects to articulate what AI‑assisted observation should and
should not mean is now.
I think about the field reports I used to write, the
ones I was taught and later taught others to word carefully: observed, never
inspected, never approved, unless I meant it. I wonder what those
reports would have looked like with the benefit of a continuous, camera‑fed record sitting
alongside them. Almost certainly better, and far harder to argue with. Whether
that makes AI tools a new obligation or simply a better mousetrap is a question the architectural profession will spend the next few years
answering. If I were a young architect today, I would embrace the new
technology before a legal decision tells me I’ve negligently fallen behind the
standard of care.
